Dead Man's Apology
by CurdonThatBastard
Summary: After a gruesome death and a more sinister punishment, the soul of a killer passes through space and time to find its way reborn in a strange new world. With no memory of his past life, he decides to start again as a new man and find meaning in the dangerous path awaiting him, even though he is convicted that he will never find the peace he so desperately seeks.
1. Dead Man's Introduction

_*Remnant…Vale…Night…*_

The night was set in the city of Vale, with the distinctive shattered moon and its fragments dimly hovering straight above the town and its citizens.

The midnight clock began ticking, indicating to the many late workers and shops to close and go back to their homes. However, some few decided to stay up for just a couple more hours, having a bit of preference to the late-night customers or just to make a quick cleaning around their businesses.

One of those shops was a small humble dust store called _**'From Dust Till Dawn'**_ , the shop wasn't selling anything really out of the ordinary, books, magazines, small goodies, and as its name stands, mostly dust.

The shopkeeper was standing in the center of a round counter displaying a wide variety of dust in its pure crystal state, differencing in shape and color. The old man was minding his own business, wiping the glass counter with a towel before the bell hanged above the entrance of the shop rang, announcing that somebody just entered.

He glanced at the person standing next to the wide-open door, a young man, probably in his teenage years, however, he seemed to be more mature looking thanks to his approximately 6" height and his sharp facial traits.

He was wearing a casual outfit made of a baggy dark magenta sweatshirt along with a small orange backpack strapped to his back, along with a blue baseball cap shadowing his piercing light purple eyes and covering most of his head but a small part of his blond hair at the back and the sides with some yellow locks twirling around his forehead.

The shopkeeper looked back at his work while the boy left the door closing itself and began wandering around the shop, his stern gaze inspecting the many shelves of the store with a steady walk while his footsteps made little to no noise as his body was sliding around totally unnoticed like a ghost.

He then stopped dead as his attention was caught by one of the many books located on the bookshelves on his right, without moving his lower body, his torso leaned toward the shelve next to him, his eyes aiming at the book that caught his attention.

" _ **The Man With Two Souls II: The Man With Four Souls"**_ He read the title engraved on the side of the book, supposedly a sequel to another novel, he grabbed it and read the summary on the back.

" _A man in possession of two distinct souls, each one of them trying to fight to take over the body where the two are trapped. While the man in question struggles to find harmony between the two and finally find peace..."_

The summary prompted his interest for some reason, feeling somewhat relating to the protagonist's mindset. However, he reluctantly put it back as he decided to look for the first book before diving into this one.

Also, he had to master his curiosity and focus on the task at hand, he headed toward the dust section of the store and began browsing the many dust boxes sorted around.

While most dust gems were used to power electronic devices and ammo for weaponry, some less powerful one can be taken as jewelry given their diamond-like structure. Gifting a dust box to a companion signified deep affection and sometimes can be considered as a marriage proposal in Vale's culture.

"Mmmmmh, no, this one's too small and the color makes it look bland and tasteless, a woman would never appreciate that…" He slightly muttered while immediately putting the box in his hands back to its place and taking the one next to it.

Strangely enough, he wasn't even giving a look at the crystals inside and neither to the expensive prices of the boxes, the only thing he seemed to check was the shape of the containers, nothing more.

Suddenly, his ears caught the bell rings from the entrance, five rings, meaning that five persons entered the shop, or two drunk persons trying to get in the store, or just simply a single ridiculously drunk person struggling to find his way inside.

The two later propositions were soon dismissed when he caught the small footsteps of five different individuals, by the sound of it, the shoes these persons were wearing seemed to be Derbies which meant they were possibly male, or maybe females with masculine attire, who know.

One thing for sure was that one of them was a man as he heard a notable voice talking to the store clerk, probably the leader of the group giving his uniquely sharp and pretentious voice, one of those stereotypical mustaches twirling bad guys.

The leader turned towards his henchmen and gave them some orders, the men soon headed to the dust canisters and started emptying them dry while some other started to smash the display cases and taking every dust gem worth taking.

It can't be, are they… robbing the store? At this precise moment?!

"You've got to be kidding me..." Frustration slipped through the boy's teeth as he increased in pace, he hated working in a stressful situation despite it being ineffective to the quality of his work thanks to his shatterproof composure, but he just simply hated it when somebody bothered him like that.

"Screw this! This one will do!"

He reached to his backpack and turned it toward his chest, in the same movement, he zipped open his bag and proceeded to put the box inside, now all he had to do was to get the heck out of here before any of these men come here-

"No sudden move kiddo, turn slowly toward me with calm, and I won't have to put a bullet in ya."

The cold tip of the man's handgun depravedly caressed the boy's neck as he forcefully did what the man ordered him, deep inside of him he was boiling with anger but his outside features only displayed a cold stare toward the gangster in front of him.

He was wearing a black and red outfit similar to those of a local gang called the **Henchmen** , their HQ was a nightclub southeast of town and they mostly work as guns for hire, still, robing a dust store was still uncanny for them.

How did the boy is acquainted with them though? That's for another story, but let's just say it wasn't a very pleasant encounter.

"What's with the cold shoulder friend? You've got a problem you need to express?" Jokingly pointed out the henchman a vile smirk drawn on his snake looking face.

"Look, pal, I don't want any trouble, I have nothing valuable in me, just leave me to go in peace, please."

"Hah! Do you really think that we'll leave you to go like nothing happened? Go get the police on our arses like that?" Chuckled the gangster sticking his gun deeper in the boy's forehead making his traits tenser. "You ain't going anywhere sooner than that boy, so you're just going to sit here like a good kid, alright?"

Two hours and twenty minutes, that's all the time he had left or he'll miss his _'rendezvous'_ and will probably never get a second one, he cannot stay one single second in this godforsaken place, but with that gun pointed to his forehead he has nowhere else to go, unless…

However, fate seemed to be in his side as the two heard sudden noises of bumps and stomps on the other side of the shop, followed by the shrill scream of something violently getting slammed to the front of the store.

The young boy looked through the shelves and saw a small glance of z young girl wearing a dark and red robe casually wrestling another gangster to the ground and knocking him out instantly.

That was his opportunity to strike, his gaze turned at the man in front of him still keeping his attention away from him, and with a swift motion of his right arm, he slapped off the gun from the gangster's hand then proceeded to grab his arm and forced him to crouch on one knee using a quick jab of his foot, before finishing him with a strike right under the jaw.

The man did not realize not a single thing on what just happened before finding himself blacked out after the final blow.

The blonde dropped the unconscious man on the ground, at that moment, his eyes met with one of the gangster's colleagues witnessing the whole event completely bewildered.

A sharp crack was heard at the other side of the store as one of the front windows shattered in pieces, the blond boy glared at the mafioso in front of him as he started to snap back to reality before gritting his teeth and charging the boy with his red saber raised.

The blond made a slight step back as he dodged a violent slash merely avoiding his shirt, then he did the same with the second attack before finding the opportunity to counter-attack with a sidekick right in the guts.

The henchman grimaced in pain as he held his waist and dropped his sword in the instant, before abruptly getting a rapid brutal foot smashed on his face, sending him a couple of feet to the ground with a stream of blood following him.

The mobster grunted in pain as he tried to regain his stance with his fedora falling off and his pair of sunglasses completely shattered across his face, the man put a hand on his disfigured mug, remarking the flow of blood coming from his nose.

" _You little son of a bitch…"_ The man clumsy stood on one knee, his head still feeling stunned as he sees the blond boy approaching him in a menacing manner, the thug noticed that his expression turned to be more severe and threatening.

The boy had a cold emotionless stare, his deep purple irises menacingly glowing sent shivers down the criminal's spine, like he was confronting some kind of serial killer ready to pluck his heart out with his bare hands.

The gangster trembled in fear at the teen slowly approaching him, before making a blissful attempt to attack by directing his fist toward him, but his movements were so ridiculously weak and slow that instead, he was the one receiving a punch square in the face, immediately knocking him down as he collapses on the window behind him, shattering in it in pieces.

The man finally surrendered and stayed laying on the ground feeling his wounds aching, he kept breathing heavily under a pile of broken glass while the young boy casually approached him, not even giving a look at what he has done and simply exited the store through the broken window.

The boy finally opted for a calmer behavior; there his attention was caught by the supposed girl of earlier standing outside of the store.

Her dark hair was cut in a bob with a few strands resting around her uncanny silver eyes and she was wearing a black and red dress with red cape attached to her shoulders, she seemed very young, barely above the age of fifteen, however, she was holding behind here some kind of mechanical looking scythe three times her size and painted with the same color scheme as the rest of her outfit.

She must have some strong arms to yield such an imposing weapon…

The girl soon looked toward the blond boy, pulling a surprised expression as she was expecting to be the only person around taking out these goons, he asked her with a monotone voice.

"Let me guess… You've got dragged in this too, right?"

"Uuuuh, yeah?" She muttered with a perplexed grimace,

"Hey wait! Where are you going?!" Startled the black-haired girl as she sees him simply walking away, the blonde didn't even give a slight glance at her as he withdrew carelessly.

Must to his apology for leaving the young girl alone, he didn't have much time left to reach his objective.

Also, he never was a fighter even though he showed quite a few skills back there, he mostly preferred to avoid any close encounters at any cost and will escape at any opportunity given, still, that didn't mean he didn't have his shares of battles against a few clingy foes.

And this one will probably add up to the number as he stopped and heard the pretentious voice of earlier calling them out.

"Well this was supposed to be an easy job, go in, take everything and go out, simple. But no… You brats had the obligation to mess everything up didn't ya?" The young boy felt a bit of hatred coming from the man's voice, he turned back at the Dust store and saw the four identically looking henchmen (even those who he clearly messed them up) gathering around a fancy looking persona, supposedly the leader of the group.

He was an orange-haired man with a black bowler hat gently placed above his head, his long bangs were covering his right eye while the left visible one was traced by a black eyeliner, he was wearing a classy white costume with a pair of black trousers , addition to that was a grey little scarf warped around his neck and a red cigar he was smoking at a faster pace than usual due to his displeased emotion.

When he was talking about a mustache-twirling villain, he was joking.

He glanced at his goons standing around him for a minute before ordering them with an impatient tone.

"Well, go get 'em…"

The scythe-wielding girl drew a wide smirk as she rushed toward the approaching assailants, planting the blade of her weapon in the concrete and using it to spin around before striking a lightning kick at the face of the unfortunate soul who dared to come at her.

"Oh my god, seriously…" Complained the blonde as he facepalmed by how infuriating all this mess is, he then briefly glanced at his share of attackers with a disheartened look in his face as they surrounded him, weapons drawn.

Suddenly, a sharp knife slid down the boy's right sleeve and toward his hand grabbing it in the instant, he quickly raised it as he intercepted one of the mobsters' attack and lowered himself down to the ground before dashing next to the man's left leg, slashing the lower part in the same period with a flick of his wrist.

He left him to groan in pain as he crouched at the deep cut he had around his tibias and faced his next target coming close at him, he quickly gave a quick low-kick at the gangster's knee paralyzing him, before finalizing with a quick strike on his face, sending him to the ground.

* * *

 **Ruby Rose** pulled out her **Crescent Rose** from the ground before glancing back at the henchman coming from behind, she positioned her scythe in a horizontal position and pulled the trigger to use the recoil for a must faster swing, sending the criminal to the outskirts like he was hit by a tornado.

Now with all her attackers defeated, she put her scythe on the ground and lied on it as she tries to regain her breath.

"Well, that was easy…"

She then glanced at where the boy of earlier was and how he was dealing with his aggressors, she was hugely impressed by his incredible skills, the way he easily dodged every single attack even though how close he was between the two gangsters was fascinating, it was like he was some kind of liquid flowing around the two dumbfounded men, carefully slashing with his knife anyone who dared to step in his range.

His knife was carefully sharpened to become even sharper than the blade of a katana, having the ability to pierce through the thickest clothes and meat and even reaching the bones. However, the young man didn't choose to go lethal and only focused on incapacitating his enemy by targeting their limbs, especially where the tendons are between the muscles.

The thugs around him soon crumbled on the ground, all paralyzed by the number of wounds carved around their arms and legs, much to their leader's displease as he stayed spectating the whole scene occurring in the distance.

"Hey, not bad for someone who only uses a knife!" Complimented Ruby as she joined the boy with a cheerful tone, looking at him with a glad smile as he was adjusting his cap with no change in his expression.

"You too…" He simply muttered with a dull tone, still, he had the courtesy to compliment her, while dragging back his knife inside his sleeve like a magician.

The two turned at the bowl hat wearing man, looking at them with a casual face as he was waving his arms around nonchalantly.

"Well, I can't say you two didn't make this evening really boring, but I'm afraid it is time for us to part away…" He pointed the cane in his hand toward the two, lifting the small round sight from the little hole inside his cane before shooting a red flare at them.

The blond boy gasped as he dived away from the projectile impacting the ground where the two teenagers were standing, he could feel the heat of the explosion emitting behind his back before he had the chance to finally stand up.

The blond looked in disgust at the amount of dust staining his outfit while the girl next to him used her scythe to lift herself up coughing due to the amount of smoke clearing around them.

Ruby promptly started looking around for where that orange haired guy did go, before finding him climbing up the stairs of a nearby building.

"Come on, let's go!" She yelled at the boy in a firm tone before she was met by the blonde's surprising frown waving his hands at her apologetically.

"Sorry, but that'll be without me…" He still had an appointment to make, the sooner the better he headed to the mall where his 'date' was going to wait for him.

Ruby just rolled her eyes at the young man's complain before suddenly grabbing him by his hood and dragging him with her in a hurried sprint.

"He-Hey stop! What are you doing?!"

"Come one! We have no time to waste!"

Before the boy could even interject, he suddenly found himself blasting in the air as the black-haired girl fired a shot on the ground, both sending them up to the roof where their target made his escape, as she safely landed on the roof, she finally dropped the blonde's hood letting him collapse on the ground completely stunned.

" **Stop right here criminal scum!"** Pointed Ruby with a severe look in her silver eyes, followed by the boy behind her slowly standing back on his feet still shaking from the one hell of a ride of earlier.

" _Persistent…"_ The orange-haired robber silently growled as his head slightly turned at the two, before a grasp of wind shook the entirety of the ground they were standing on as a giant aircraft appeared from below and flew mere inches next to the professional thief, giving him the opportunity to hop in as soon as the hatch opened before turning at his pursuers with a smug smile on his face.

" **End of the line! Brats!"** He tossed a small red gem at their feet before shooting at it with his cane, the crystal burst into bright flames submerging the two in a horrifying explosion.

The blond boy covered his face anticipating with horror the sudden feeling of flames overwhelming his body, before slowly lowering his arms as he realized he was left unharmed, then looking with surprise at the woman in front of him casting weird purple circles twirling around her wand, which with more inspection looked more like a riding crop than just a plain stick.

She was a middle-aged woman, still, she looked fairly young than average, her light blond hair was gathered in a small bun in the back of her head with some strands curling around her beautiful white face, a pair of glasses was resting above her pointy little nose while her green emerald eyes were glowing by the light of the moon.

Ruby was staring at the woman with a pure state of astonishment as her eyes were glowing in admiration at her while the boy gave a more confused look, wondering why and how did she get up here in such a convenient moment.

The woman didn't give attention to the eyes gazing at her back and preferred to primarily focus at the helicopter attempting to fly away, leaving the severe scold she prepared to them for later.

* * *

In the end, the criminal escaped despite the woman's intervention, which soon was revealed to be an actual huntress, and a top skilled one on top of that given by the set of magic she showed during the event.

Which only justified the severe scold she gave to the two teenagers for their imprudent behavior, well, most of the reprimanding was targeted toward the poor black-haired girl as she admitted being responsible to all the chaos and dragging along with her the blond boy, before justifying her actions by saying that she wanted to protect the dust shop from the criminals.

The boy on the other hand simply stood quiet.

After this, the Huntress took the two to a nearby police station where they were interrogated about the robbery. Since then the blonde didn't see his temporary companion of battle, only hearing her slight mumbles between the many yelling of the Huntress in question from the adjacent room.

He was sitting on a plastic chair with a wooden table in front of him, besides that, nothing much mattered besides a little lamp hanging on the ceiling of this dull box of cement, just a typical interrogation room.

He was crossing his arms with his legs stretched to the limit and his head laying back, trying to catch a bit of rest after this eventful night, a slight sigh slipped from his mouth while he was taking off his blue baseball cap and putting it on the table, he then brushed his light hair to the back of his neck with some strands slipping between his fingers and messily falling on his forehead.

He looked at his wristwatch with frustration, only one hour forty-six seconds left for his date…

The door opened and somebody entered the room, the blonde lifted his eyes expecting the blond huntress to give him his share of discipline, however, he soon found a man walking toward him.

He was wearing a completely black suit with golden buttons closing his vest on top of a green turtleneck sweater, his white messy hair showed that he must be in his twilight years, still, he also seemed very young for his age, this is probably one of the benefits of being a huntsman.

The man adjusted his black shades on top of his nose and gave a glance at the sharp knife in his hand, inspecting it with great interest while waving it around his hand with a small grin.

"I could say this quite a sharp knife, I was nearly going to cut myself when holding it around…" He put the knife on the table and rested both his hands on the board while giving an attentive stare at the teen. "However, I didn't find the trigger to change your weapon's form, it must be some kind of sophisticated mechanism to fold in such a small space… So, tell me, what is your secret secondary weapon? A pistol? A pair of nunchakus? Or maybe a set of darts I presume?"

The blonde looked at the man for a brief moment before drawing a slightly mocking smile on his face, he took his knife with only the three prominent fingers of his right hand and began balancing it on the tip of his fingers while resting his cheek on the palm of his other unused hand.

"Well, you see… There's nothing special about it, it's just a knife…" At his last word, he dropped the knife and let it slide gracefully inside the sleeve of his sweatshirt while still depicting the same smug smile at the man blinking in stupefaction.

"Well, impressive…" The white-haired man chuckled while putting back his glasses on top of his nose, one thing that he can retain from his long years in the field was the wide variety of weapons used by huntsmen and huntresses, each one of them bearing uncanny abilities and perks and at least two forms of weapons that the huntsman can switch between them at any given time, most of the time it's between a melee and ranged state.

Still, he also found some fighters using a more standard weapon like a pistol or a sword, but he never saw something as simple as a knife that its other faculty is to spread goddamn butter.

"My associate Ms. **Goodwitch** told me that you have demonstrated a high set of skills during your battle, taking out all of your foes in a swift motion with only the use of this small blade. If someone else told me this I wouldn't believe them, but since it comes from my most trusted accomplice, I can only take these words as truth. So, tell me, where did you learn such skillful fighting style?"

"I can't say I had a specific teacher, to be honest…" Confessed the blond teen crossing his arms. "Most of the time it's only my instinct ringing…"

"A fighter at heart, wonderful…" Concluded the white-haired man with a glad grin, however, the boy wasn't sharing his expression.

"Despite me…" Shrugged the young man "I was never the kind of guy who beats up people at any street corner, to be honest…"

"I see…" The man muttered while removing his hands on the table and putting them behind his back before switching his look into a serious one. "Do you know who I am here, young man?"

The boy looked at him unconcerned for a moment. "No, should I?"

"Well…" Shook the man's head with a slight sneer. "You see, I am a very famous person in Vale, never heard of **Beacon Academy**?"

"Yes, I've heard of it, why?" If he recalls properly, it was some kind of school where students would train to be huntsmen, like that girl of earlier but she didn't seem to be at the age to be part of that academy.

"Well I am the man in charge of it, my name is **Ozpin** , headmaster of Beacon Academy."

"Interesting, I don't know why I have the honor to have such a 'prestigious' person in front of me, but I guess the least I could say is nice to meet you…"

"The pleasure is mine…" Nodded the headmaster before giving an intrigued glance at the boy "So, what about you, young man? What did the gods name you?"

The blonde looked at Ozpin for a long moment, he closed his eyes and rubbed them while he was trying to make himself more comfortable in his seat.

He crossed his leg in a very luxurious way while he put his left forearm on his chest before resting on top of the elbow of his right arm, he formed a fist with his right hand and rested his right cheek on it, after that, he finally opened his eyes depicting a very relaxed tone in his shining purple iris, his lips spread into a very confident smile as he finally uttered with a confident voice the words he built so much suspense.

" _ **My name is Kira Yoshikage, and to be honest I don't really believe that the gods are the one who gave me this name..."**_


	2. Dead Man's Arrival

"Kira… Yoshikage?"

"First name's Yoshikage, last name is Kira." Pointed out the blonde, his head still resting on the palm of his hand as he was expecting the wide confused stare the white-haired professor was giving to him, he wasn't the first one to pull out such face during the very rare occasions the boy revealed his name to anyone inside his very tiny circle of 'trusted' acquaintance.

"You aren't making this simple, are you?" Noticed Ozpin about the young man's strange name with a perplexed glare, Yoshikage occasionally got this type of comment about it so he got used to it pretty quickly. "Anyway…"

The man stood straight, clearing out his throat before lifting his small glasses once again, after this, a long moment of silence occurred as he was pulling off the most serious expression he could accomplish.

"I guess you're wondering why I'm still keeping you here?"

Kira didn't need to reply as his face clearly showed his thoughts, he was quite in a rush and wasn't really appreciating being stuck in this grey soiled room. That's something Ozpin perfectly noticed as he sighed before speaking once again.

"Well, I have a proposition for you… From the identity card, you have filled to the policemen, it says you are 17 years old, right?" The blonde slightly nodded, not finding a reason why he should lie to the professor about his age.

However, he soon realized that he probably should have as he saw the man drawing a wide smile. "Your skills in combat have shown to be extremely efficient, quite similar to the one a huntsman would use, have you ever considered being part of them in the past?"

"No, actually no, I never had the idea to consider it to be honest…"

"Now that I'm giving you the idea in this instance, what is your answer?"

A small devious smile appeared between the finger covering Kira's mouth, accompanied with a piercing stare at professor, despite the smile, the boy wasn't pleased, in fact it was making him quite annoyed, he had the small intuition that the man was planning on luring him into his benefits, which made him look like a gullible idiot, and that's something he hated the most.

However, Yoshikage decided to play the game, wondering where this is going to lead.

"Why should I join the academy?" Asked the blond raising a pretentious eyebrow, such demeanor didn't please the old man, but he wasn't expecting his response, while every other teenager, like the young Ruby Rose, for example, would be definitely thrilled to join the most prestigious academy in all of Vale, this boy decided to keep his distance.

" _This kid is pretty sharp for his age, or at least acts like one…"_ Briefly thought the professor before replying to the boy, nodding in comprehension. "Actually, we were expecting to enlist only your little friend Ruby Rose, however, I found myself in front of two persons with high potential, it would be a waste if I only enlisted one of you. In the same time, I guess your speculations and worries are fair enough, I'll tell you why you should consider my proposition then…"

Ozpin took a drastic pose as he was delivering the following speech.

"By entering my academy you will be formed to become the most praised rank in our society, a huntsman, where you will be taught the most skilled fighting technics, but you will also understand that a huntsman is not just here to fight monsters, but also help the millions of people around the four kingdoms, that is the noblest work of them all…"

"Noble indeed…" Yoshikage agreed with a nod. "But I think I slightly pointed out earlier that I'm not really the kind of guy who goes in exciting battles, whatever kind of premise I put myself into…" That's why ideas of him even attending other military factions like the Atlesian military, for example, were pretty much doubtful…

"Some of them actually didn't ask for it either, these people decided to become huntsmen not only by choice but also by duty…" Declared the white-haired professor. "I suppose you greatly know the danger that threatens humanity…"

His stare suddenly switched to a skeptical one as he adjusted his glasses one more time. "However, I'm still wondering why you somehow managed to develop a fantastic set of skills in combat, despite your revulsion to close-encounters, why such a clear contradiction in your words Yoshikage?"

Kira didn't reply as he glanced at the small silver wristwatch strapped around his right hand, before suddenly standing up from his chair nonchalantly stating.

"Well, look at the time now…" He turned toward the surprised professor with an apologized sneer. "I'm sorry but, I have a little _'rendezvous_ with a charming woman in about an hour… I must go."

The blonde casually walked past the white-haired man and opened the door leading to the exit, before Ozpin stopped his track calling him with a very stern voice.

"You didn't answer my question young man."

A grim expression drew on the blonde's face as his hand froze around the doorknob he was holding, his lips completely sealed while Ozpin turned toward him in a swift movement, displaying the severe stare targeted at the boy's back.

"On second thought, I really don't care about what thing you put your ability in use, in fact, I think it's better if we leave it as a secret."

"Indeed Mr. Ozpin…" Muttered Kira as he twisted the doorknob and opened the door, the sound that it made didn't please the professor as his eyebrows frowned at the boy with regret.

"However, I'm very saddened that you leave your potential to waste like that, you would never understand the sense of accomplishment a huntsman feels when his duties were done, the feeling of being someone who matters to the people surrounding him, and finally, the **purpose** of keeping those who you love safe."

An inspiring monologue that would bring anyone into tears, however, Yoshikage Kira isn't just anyone, and it was quite clear by his unchanged expression, still, this made the grey matter inside his skull stir up a little, at the end he slowly turned his head back at the professor and gave him a quick reply.

"I will consider your proposition further from now, I'm glad we had such interesting discussion sir Ozpin."

As soon as these words came out from his mouth, he immediately vanished to the other side of the door and closed it before never coming back again.

Ozpin sighed a little bit as he sat on the table behind him, thinking about how strange this boy was and how confusing it was to actually communicate with such enigmatic person, he got his shares of cryptic/mysterious meetings, but this one will probably be one he'll definitely remember.

Still, he was glad that the discussion ended with at least a 'maybe' instead of a harsh decisive 'no'.

And something tells him this is not the last time he will see the mysterious blonde with the light purple eyes.

* * *

" _Shit! Only fifteen minutes left!"_

The moment the doors of the tram slid open, a fast speeding Yoshikage Kira bounced out and steered toward the stairs leading to the exit of the subway. He rushed through the steps and in between the startled bystanders looking at the dark purple shadow flowing between their arms and legs.

The blonde finally came out from the tunnel, his eyes staring right toward the shopping mall on the other side of the road at his left. Five minutes later, he was already sprinting inside the mall, his eyes widening in panic at the stores in his path were closing one by one.

He launched himself at the escalator and reached the next floor, skating on the slippery marble floor and slaloming around the bewildered shopping buyers returning to their homes, he soon took a wide turn and stormed inside a fast-food joint to his left, scarring the cashiers and the customers as he suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Hey pal, we're closing in nine minutes, we don't take any orders now." Notified one of the cashiers with irritation clear in his upset eyes.

"Ow, don't worry! I won't be here for more than a minute!" Politely apologized the blonde with a nervous stare, he then turned toward one side of the fast-food, focusing on one of the tables standing next to a plain window with an apartment building as its view.

His eyes zoomed even more at the young couple eating their burger, the window between them completely opened.

As estimated by Kira, these two always came precisely in this hour to enjoy a quick midnight snack before coming back home. Since they are occasional smokers, they always opened the window next to them, even sometimes throwing their cigarettes off of it which the blonde found completely unacceptable.

He then switched his attention at his watch that he lifted below his chin as he began carefully counting the seconds passing by.

"And as expected, they should be leaving the table riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight now!"

Magically, the two stood up from their chairs and gathered their plates still continuing the discussion they had on the table before their attention immediately turned at the sprinting boy approaching them at a shocking speed.

Kira put his right foot on the table then used his other leg to propel himself outside of the goddamn window, leaving him leaping in the air for nearly two seconds before crashing inside a balcony facing him and carefully landing on it, his small acrobatic stunt was met by a dark gloomy interior filled with many debris of stone and pieces of construction kits.

The whole house he stormed into was under heavy renovation and the workers must have bee, gone, for now, giving him a chance to enter the building's corridor and step to the upper next floor unbothered.

He strolled around the corridors of the building while reading each door number as they appeared around him.

At the same time, he took off his sweatshirt and jeans and dropped them in the ground with no intention to wear them once again, revealing a blue denim jumpsuit behind his previous outfit, he also dropped his orange backpack after pulling off the fancy black wooden box he stealthy smuggled from the dust shop.

"258, that must be it…" He took a firmer stance as he positioned himself in front of one of the many identical doors stretching across the long hallway, he quickly ringed the doorbell of the house before tightly grabbing the box in his hand, hugely displaying it in front of his chest.

His sharp hearing immediately distinguished noises of footsteps approaching the door from the other side before abruptly stopping in front of it, a small moment passed before the harsh unpleasant voice of a young woman emanated from inside the apartment.

"Yea, wo's dis?"

"Delivery for you miss…" Replied Kira with a bland tone, perfectly mimicking the same flat attitude of a normal postman.

"How did you get all the way up there? The door of the building must be closed and the janitor in the first floor should have taken the package…"

"The door was open and I didn't find the janitor too, he seemed on vacation, I hope I didn't do something wrong…"

Kira could hear the woman cursing something in a very low voice before talking one again.

"Can I know what's the inside of this package?"

"From the small notice I have, it says that it's some dust crystals… I assume you ordered these via the internet?"

"I see… What company do you work for?"

The blonde didn't immediately reply, he didn't think that the woman would be this cautious.

"Uuuuummm, _Remnant Express_ miss…" He randomly tossed in hope that it would be enough for her, unfortunately, it wasn't.

"I don't recall ever having packages coming from your company, I always choose the more private one, you probably got the wrong address…"

"Well for some reasons, your order arrived in our warehouse and we have the request to send it to you…" He glanced at the vertical numbers next to the door designating the number of the apartment. "Bridgton Residence, door number 258… No, there's no mistake this is the place. Maybe your husband made the order?"

"No-No! I have no husband nor I have a boyfriend or relatives…"

For some reasons, the blonde drew a slight vile smile as he lowered his head and let his blue baseball cap hide his purple eyes in a grim shadow, the woman finally talked again.

"Can I know from where the dust came from? Which dust company made it?"

Finally, something he kinda prepared for, after all, even a moron would like to know from when did his package came from, unless you're the scum type and accept any kind of packages even if it wasn't yours.

He glanced at the golden symbol engraved on the wooden box and gave a clear reply. " **Schnee Dust Company** , ma'am…"

"I knew it! You are a scammer! Schnee Dust Company have their own delivery method!"

The woman thought that she got him red-headed, however, the boy didn't seem to be reacting as expected and just casually replied with no sense of tense.

"Sometimes, the company gets overflowed by the number of orders and calls some third-party couriers to make some of the deliveries. It's not our first delivery for them…" His statement seems to be convincing as he didn't hear the girl reply immediately, she took a couple of seconds thinking about the situation before finally answering with a sigh.

"Alright, just leave the box on the floor, I'll pick it up later…"

"I apologize but I cannot leave this easily, I need you first to sign the package receipt, it's under the rules and I'm deeply obliged to do so…"

A moment passed before the woman shouted with an exasperated tone.

"Ugh! Alright! Just step back from the door!"

"Thank you…"

Kira did as she said, in the same time, he began hearing the many locks of the door opening one by one before finally seeing the door leaving a slight gap to see the interior of the house.

Half the head of the woman peeked through the small gape with an annoying brown eye and strands of orange hair falling down her facing, staring at him for a brief second before suddenly, a grasp of air violently slapped her face in a daze and entered inside her home.

The women backed away for a moment, blinking a couple of time before looking once again outside with great surprise as she sees no sight of a courier standing in front of her doorstep and the famous wooden dust box dropped on the ground silently.

She examined the corridor to confirm that the strange man she talked with really vanished out of thin air, before finally dragging the box inside of her house and immediately closing the door, she began inspecting the small crate with a skeptic eye while hiding back the small revolver she was holding inside a small crack in the wall next to the front door.

"Thank god this guy's gone, his voice gave me the creeps…" She muttered, by the towel warped around her and the drops of water sliding down her naked body, she must have recently come out of the shower.

"God, I should really speak with **Junior** and the way he sends me these dust crystals…" She pulled out a small bong and a lighter from one of the nightstands around the messed up shack the woman was living in.

Dust was a fundamental material for the people of Remnant to keep their prosperity, the mineral was used in every sort of sectors, from electricity to industrial manufacture and even in medicine given by its unlimited potential, but soon people found a much more perfidious use of the stone that would hit the four kingdoms by its plague, people began smuggling around synthesized dust crystals to be used as drugs, and the woman we have here is no rookie for these types of things given by the many needle scars around her skinny body.

However, as she was heading back to her bedroom with the box, she didn't notice not a single bit the strange shadow cast above her, coming from the soiled dusty ceiling of the tight corridor leading to the entrance.

Kira kept his calm as much as possible while being swarmed with spiders walking around his body, his limps stretching on the ends of the ceiling and placing his hands and feet on the top of the walls to prevent him from falling in the ground.

Even though Yoshikage was a very slim young man, giving him the ability of great dexterity and swiftness without mentioning a phenomenal skill in stealth, the many acrobatic maneuvers and remarkable climbing talents that he built up over the years quickly trained his body to be top of its shape, developing toned muscles and board shoulders.

Any woman would melt if she saw him shirtless, which is why he prefers always having something covering his torso in public even in the hottest environment.

As soon as he sees the woman entering her bedroom and closing the door, he immediately stopped gripping the walls and left himself drop on the ground, his feet doing not a single sound as he gracefully landed on the dusty wooden floor.

He wasn't expecting to be walking in a high-class penthouse when he took the job, after all, he was inside a junkie's house. Still, he was morbidly amazed by the lack of hygiene a normal human being can horribly reach…

"Wha-What the fuck! This box is empty! What kind of fucking rip-off is this?!" The blonde heard the woman's voice shouting from inside her bedroom, it seems like she opened the box in the end.

"I'm going to call this son of a bitch and give him my share of thoughts!"

He left her arguing with this so-called 'Junior', a name he has heard many times over the course of his career but never had the chance or the 'job' to meet the man in person.

He kept strolling around the apartment, now trying to search for an adequate 'window' for some reason, the confidentiality of his mission cannot let him reveal more about it, even to us readers.

His footsteps making not a single noise despite him walking as casual as he used to do, especially since he was walking on a usually squeaky wooden surface.

"What do you mean it's not my monthly package day yet?! Who's that weird guy that left in front of my house just minutes ago?! Whu… **WHAT THE FLYING GODDAMN FUCK DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T SEND ANYBODY AT MY PLACE TODAY! DO YOU WANT ME TO GO FUCKING CRAZY?!** "

She's starting to get angrier; he should probably hurry before she comes out of her room.

He took a right turn still looking for that window and headed to the kitchen before dodging a plate of pizza laying on the ground, he began lurking around with a vomiting sense at the most disgusting place in the whole house or maybe in the entire world, aka the kitchen.

At that moment, his eyes froze in shock followed by the rest of his body suddenly stopping in mid-movement, not a single part of his muscles made a slight flinch as the blonde's eyes kept staring at the putrid animal slurping repulsively the bowl of water in front of his paws.

Kira took a deep breath and began slowly maneuvering his feet backward while keeping a good sight at the **Pitbull** still not giving him a slight of attention attention, you could clearly say that the woman was the owner of the dog given by his horrid dark grey skin and the many cuts and scars around his body, still, unlike his owner, this mutt was a big fat beast that could probably compete even against _**one of those creatures**_ outside Vale.

"Shit! I thought this goddamn dog was still at the vet getting castrated!" He angrily though gritting his teeth, this operation has taken far too much from the blond than what its pay's worth.

However, his slight distraction soon caused the heel of his right foot to accidentally step on the plate of earlier, making a sharp distinctive sound as the plate shattered in pieces.

Kira couldn't even have the time to realize what he stepped on before the Pitbull made an immediate 180 degrees turn and charged at the blonde with barks similar to the sounds of thunder, the blonde looked in fright at the massive dog running at him while he tried to make an escape while at the same time pulling his sharp knife from his sleeve.

However, he wasn't fast enough to outrun a rabid filled box on four legs and got suddenly tackled on the ground before finding the dog viciously biting the blonde's left leg. Kira emitted a slight hiss of pain as the mutt began clawing his sharp teeth inside his leg, trying to snatch it off for an upcoming dinner.

Still, this wasn't the most alarming thing as the boy looked at the door of the woman's bedroom slowly opening with the two laying just in front of the entrance.

In a panic, Kira gave a set of fulgurant kicks on the dog's disgusting face and precisely on his right eye, forcing him to let go his leg as he immediately dragged himself back on his feet and sprinted away despite his wounded leg.

The woman looked in surprise as she sees her dog running across the house and toward the kitchen barking like a hound, she was more in shock as she sees the knife on the ground covered in drops of blood.

"The hell does this knife do here?" She glanced at the blood forming some kind of trail toward the corner of the wall where she heard noises of fights occurring in the kitchen, she ran inside the room and caught a small glimpse of her dog leaving the room while chasing something or _someone._

Startled, she headed to one of the drawers inside the kitchen and pulled out another small revolver from a plastic bag, checking if the gun was fully loaded before following the trail of blood pointing her weapon in front of her with a hostile look.

"Someone's in the house! I'm sure of it!"

She finally tracked back the stream of blood in the living room, where she found her dog wrecking around the furniture while chasing down a strange dark shadow bouncing around like a frog, she was first dumbfounded by the strange being her dog was chasing before immediately pointing her gun and firing two shots at the blurry silhouette, merely missing him by a hair as he disappeared inside the other door of the living room.

"You son of a bitch! I'm going to kill you!"

She followed her dog to the main corridor where she began lurking around while going along the trail of blood spreading on the floor, however, her search suddenly came to an end as the trail of blood suddenly stopped appearing on the ground.

"Shit! The blood stops here! Where did he fucking go?!" She immediately ran toward the room next to her with a furious tone while the Pitbull strangely didn't follow her and just kept standing where the trail of blood ended, barking at the slightly open window in front of him.

* * *

Above the junkie's house was an abandoned flat desolated for months, rumors say that it belonged to an old woman that recently died of a heart attack, she was living alone and her son inherited the house but he chose to stay in his luxurious penthouse in downtown and left it like that, since then the house just gathered dust and spider webs until our protagonist decided to take it as a temporary refuge.

Kira climbed up to the window and dragged himself and his wounded leg inside the dark house, he lay on the flat empty floor trying to catch his breath for a moment before roughly standing up and heading to the bathroom, flinching in pain at the slight contact his left foot made with the ground, it seems like this goddamn dog did a great job shredding the boy's tibias.

Arrived in the bathroom, he opened the drawer above the sink and took some bandages from it before sitting on the edge of the bathtub next to him, he rolled up his pants and began rolling the bandage around the horrible bloody gap engraved on his left leg, the injury seemed to be more severe than he expected and he'll probably have to see a doctor for it, but at least the bandage would stop the bleeding.

He left the bathroom and headed to the kitchen, in the same time he decided to zip open the upper part of his jumpsuit and rolled it around his waist, leaving his torso dressed in a dark tank top while he stretches his stiff muscles and arms in a slight grunt.

He opened the fridge and picked up two boxes of milk and cat crackers, there was no electricity or running water, so he had to stick with bottled water and anything that doesn't need a fridge.

He emptied the box of cat crackers on a bowl put on the ground with the name ' _ **Dolce**_ ' written on it, before pouring on top of it a little bit of milk then finally taking the rest of the bottle for himself and throwing it in the trashcan, followed by him exiting the room and coming back to the wide living room taking much of the apartment's space.

With much to zero furniture or decoration, probably because of the repo men snatching everything in the house beside the fridge for some reason, the house was completely empty, so Kira needed to make some efforts and bought a small terrace table with a chair, as well as a small mattress he put next, it clearly looked like the home of a homeless guy, but at least it's better than nothing.

The blonde sat on the chair and finally took a well-deserved rest, his sight drifting at the window next to him as he began contemplating the outside, he looked at the many cars still around in the crossroads, furiously honking at each other to move as the road was packed for miles. Such annoying things were strangely interesting for the blonde as he found appealing seeing the urban life in its pure state.

From the numerous observations when he was walking around in the streets or when he was just looking through a window like now, he somehow found some kind of pattern shared by all those bystanders, a linear path that all those people raced through to become the most successful for some reason, a path centered around _**numbers.**_

To earn a higher value than the other, to have a lower number in the ranking lists… To be one inch taller or one kilogram thinner, to be one minute quicker via bullet train, to have more digits in the bank accounts… To have one year longer to live or to have one more sexual partner than the others.

However, Kira was different, none of these were his concerns which makes it a concern by itself, he hated to admit it but he wished he had a reason to follow this pattern, a purpose that pushes him to wake up every day and do what he has to do.

Well, there is one single objective that he takes dearly in his heart, but that's something for another time, and he also has a 'job' but it wasn't making him feel this sense of accomplishment or that he was evolving in it.

What should his values be now? What can he do to find peace in his heart? Something that would bring _**happiness**_ in his life?

His deep meditation soon was interrupted as some meowing coming from down his chair, the blonde looked down to his feet and saw a black and white colored cat standing between his legs trying to climb up, Kira gave a slight calm smile as he picked up the cat and put it on his lap.

"Well, Dolce, where have you been? I've been looking for you all this time… As always you only appear when there is food, huh?" He muttered while looking at the cat caressing his head against Kira's left hand while emitting a warm purr.

This little guy must have been the old woman's cat and was cruelly left all by himself, however, when Kira found him he was surprisingly in great shape and didn't seem to be hungry, probably the fella took care of himself by hunting the wildlife around the apartment, he was quite a smart cat, to be honest.

"But I guess it would be the last time both of us will see each other, I'll have to take you to a shelter after that I leave…" It's very sad but the blonde's words were very true, it's a matter of time until the police storm this place in the morning and he cannot stay here any further after that.

This made the boy a tad depressed as he found a glimpse of comfort with the animal and even in this house, but he can't do anything from now.

He was tired, tired of leaving at every job he concluded, every time he has to escape to somewhere else, he really wanted to finally put his feet somewhere peaceful and away from all this mess, like a room of his own for example, a room with a good view where he could draw beautiful roses and flowers like those inside that flower shop he stumbled upon next to the train station…

A room with a sound system where he could listen to his favorite music without any disturbance or having to wear a headset, a room where he wouldn't have to worry about the police visiting the place or some shady gang searching for payback…

A room with a working television to watch all his favorite shows and movies, a room with his own barrier and privacy… A room he could call, _**home**_.

His wish soon turned into frustrations as he hears the loud gibberish of the woman in the lower floor followed by her goddamn mutt joining her yelping, why can a sociopathic junkie have a home and not him?!

Finally, he turned back at the window and looked down the alley, gazing at the many homeless persons shriveling and hiding inside the shadows of phone booths and letterboxes, hiding in shame from the look of the bystanders. Every day he fought to not end up like that one time, his ego wouldn't allow it.

Suddenly, the discussion he had with professor Ozpin back at the police station struck his head again, if he wasn't wrong, the students at Beacon Academy have their own room while they a study to be huntsmen.

He stayed silent for a while, then peered at the window once again, his eyes tilting towards the dark blue sky of the night, the white light of the moon illuminating half of his exposed face while the other half is deeply submerged in the shadow of the house.

" _My isn't the sky beautiful tonight…"_

* * *

" _ **My name is Kira Yoshikage…**_

 _ **I can't remember who I was or what I have done in the past…**_

 _ **However, one thing I could say is I feel certain that I will never go to heaven… Nor find the true peaceful life that I desire so much…**_

 _ **What am I to do from here?**_

 _ **I don't have the answer to that, but as time passes, I think I may find some kind of happiness by having a purpose…**_

 _ **By making my job, my purpose to live…"**_

* * *

Kira was laying on the wall behind him, his hands inside his pocket while his eyes were peering at the **Scroll** the boy sitting next to him was holding in his hand, reading the recent news outlets of the morning.

 _*_ _ **STRANGE EVENT:**_ _A young woman and her dog have inexplicably disappeared inside their home, no evidence or hints of where they could be being found in their apartment, the woman was wide known by her neighbors to be a drug addict and having shady connections with the underworld. The last phone call she has done was toward a club owner in the southern districts of Vale, at his interrogation, he firmly imposed that he never saw or talked to the woman since that phone call. This marks the fortieth sudden disappearance in the past months who soon will be the highest count the city of Vale ever reached at the end of the year, the police still don't know the cause of such vanishing and is intensely trying to investigate the subject. We'll keep you informed in the next days…*_

The blonde immediately turned his gaze away as soon as he saw the boy noticed he was watching him, you could say that he had a slight dislike for eye contact, he preferred staring at the fantastic view presented to him from one of the wide windshields filling the airplane he was on.

It was the very first time Yoshikage rode an airship in his entire life, he was mostly used to ride trains and taxis to transport himself around Vale, the feel of getting lifted from the air and toward the clouds gave goosebumps to the blond-haired boy.

You could say some weren't having the boy's same excitement as he looked at another blond boy with a disgusted and an oddly green face, stumbling around holding his mouth before vomiting at the nearest trashcan.

Well, as long as he doesn't approach him, Kira doesn't consider him much of a trouble, Yoshikage really doesn't want to be starting his first school year with a murder.

Anyway, besides that, the boy never traveled to somewhere else besides the city, that's why he prepared himself a special outfit for the trip, where you could clearly guess where most of his **Lien** goes to…

A flashy pink pullover with a pair of khakis shorts and dark blue slip-on shoes, including an expensive looking leather travel bag where he packed all his stuff. (random guess, it's more obnoxiously looking clothes.)

He soon realized the mistake he made as dozens or so of eyeballs all gawked at him and his attire, while some found his clothes quite eccentric, others found quite elegant and good tasteful.

He looked through the window and saw the clouds clearing off to reveal the wide mind-blowing structure on the ground, a tall castle with many green gardens surrounding it.

His observation soon was interrupted when the holographic silhouette of the so-called ' **Ms. Goodwitch** ' appeared in front of one of the other windows, giving a welcoming speech while she was immediately swarmed by intrigued students, Kira didn't join the mob as he preferred to stay back looking at the scenery.

"Well, here's **Beacon Academy** …"

Kira began slipping around the herds of unusually looking people swarming the place, trying to not bump into anyone or getting slashed by the weapons they keep swinging around.

Jeez! Why do they need to have such big and weird weapons?! Kira was far functional with a small knife and some combat skills, it's like they're compensating for something.

He tried to forcefully find his way to the giant academic building while keeping his travel bag close to him in case there's any pesky thief around but seeing the beautiful gardens scattered around the school gave him hope of a calmer environment when the lessons start. Maybe this place could be much peaceful than he thought, at least compared to the streets he frequented.

Unfortunately, he probably should have kept his mouth shut as a sharp detonation violently his ears making him jump in surprise, he turned toward the source of the explosion and saw two girls arguing at each other over some dropped suitcases, well, it's more look like one of the girl is making most of the arguing.

She was a white-haired girl, but not as white as her pale skin greatly shinning due to the sun rays, she was wearing an elegant dress below a small bolero barely reaching to her tight, her whole outfit was completely white with only the inside of her jacket colored in red, she must be very good at playing hide and seek in a snowy environment.

"Oh my god! Look at the damage you've done! _My precious dust collection!_ " Lamented the girl as she picked up one of the suitcases containing her valuable belongings.

The blonde never saw someone so protective over their stuff, well, besides the young man himself actually...

He was going to look at the other girl getting all the cries at her poor face, apologetically kneeling in front of the girl with a sad puppy face, but before that, he noticed something rolling toward his foot and slightly bumping on it, he looked down and saw a small bottle of red dust.

Jeez, he never thought he would see these things again in such a short time…

He picked it up and walked toward its supposed owner, her hysterical screams beginning to seriously annoy him, Yoshikage really didn't feel like beginning his first school year by stuffing someone's barking mouth with a bottle of dust.

As he walked toward the two girls, he noticed that a third girl has encountered the two right before him, as well as holding another bottle in her hand, she had long black locks that reached down her waist, a color matching the vest on top of her white crop top and shorts and without forgiving the gracious black bow attached on top of her beautifully looking face.

The blonde couldn't hear what the new girl said to the white-haired one, but it didn't look pleasing as the girl suddenly snatched off the bottle from the black-haired girl's hand and turned away with a bittering tone, nearly bumping on Kira's torso before she abruptly stopped in front of him and gave him her usual threatening stare.

"What do you want?!"

"Uhhm, excuse me…" Calmly muttered the blonde while ignoring the girl's bad attitude, displaying the red bottle in his hand to her. "I guess this is yours?"

The girl kept staring at the bottle then at him, she then snatched the bottle from his hand and walked away with no change in her irritated expression.

"Yeah whatever, thanks, I guess…"

Yoshikage kept frozen for a second before sighing for a slight bit and walking away, combing his hair to the back in an exasperated manner.

"Jeez, you're welcome… _I guess_ …"

In the meantime, Ruby slowly stood up from the ground with the help of a tall blond boy who soon introduced himself as **Jaune Arc** , the young girl thanked the boy before her silver eyes caught the sight of another tall blond boy walking away from the scene, his appearance and confident stride sounding quite familiar to her.

Wait for a second! Is it that strange guy she met when she stopped that dust robbery?!

Holy cow! That's him! What the hell does he do here?

"He-Hey! Wait!" Ruby cried out, running toward the tall blond boy slowly turning at her, the young kept eyed him like a howl with her silver eyes as she kept trying to find the right words to address him. "Yo-You're the guy from the dust shop, right?"

Yoshikage eyed the girl trembling in front her with a widely raised eyebrow before replying. "Yeah, and you must be Ruby, right?"

"Ho-How did you know my name?" Stuttered the black-haired girl with a wide daze on her face.

"I've heard it when you were getting yelled at by that woman back at the police station, I was in the other room…"

Ruby slightly chuckled in shame as she recalled the horrendous time she spent with Ms. Goodwitch.

"So, I see that you got into Beacon too, huh? That's cool!"

"Yeah, I'm only here for the free food and housing though…"

Ruby snorted at Yoshikage's joke, not knowing that it wasn't one, she then turned to Jaune who has just caught with the girl after her sudden sprint, then looked back at Yoshikage and asked him.

"Hey, we're planning on visiting the place around, wanna take a walk with us?"

Despite the cute grin, she gave to the blond, he still had the audacity to frown at her and give some half-baked apology since his anti-socialism seemed to kick in. "Yeah, I'm kind of tired and I just want to get my feet down, I'll see you…"

"Yeah, bye… Wait! I didn't catch your… _name_." Ruby weakly blurted out before realizing that the boy immediately left and was already swallowed by the crowd of people.

* * *

"I guess that's all…"

Kira finished scrambling in his notepad, carefully detailing every primary room and corridor inside the academy, which took him nearly the whole day to explore such majestic castle, that's why he made a map to not get lost inside the academy as all his future comrades will probably be.

He heard that there was a school reunion where all the students were gathered to meet each other before getting a welcoming speech by Ozpin. Of course, he was far from the whole event and he didn't like getting all cramped with other people in a small room, neither did he miss the old professor's face seeing him blathering about 'wasted energy' or that 'he needs a purpose', he already got that back at the interrogation room.

Did I mention he didn't like getting cramped in a room full of teenagers?

You can't say Yoshikage had a lot of relationships with his generation, at least ninety percent of all his acquaintances were mostly adults, and all of them being only business partners.

He never felt himself being 'chill' or 'hip' like his peers or having this sense to meet other people and make 'friends', he never had friends, he doesn't need one neither he wants to, he thinks it's a waste of time that will only disturb his work, so, he obviously didn't come to Beacon for this reason.

Still, he never knew the feeling to have a friend in the first place so his judgment was a bit biased, but let's go back to the topic.

He meticulously read all his notes for one last before throwing the notebook in the trashcan after that he was convinced that he perfectly memorized all the 105 pages of highly schemed information.

Now, all he needed to know was to where he should spend the night, he heard that the school was still preparing the rooms for the newcomers, so everybody had to stay in one of the school's main hall. Of course, Kira didn't appreciate it at all, he shivered by the idea of all the snoring, the kicking, and let's not forget about that one idiot who decides to spend the night listening to his music out loud.

The problem was where all the freshmen are supposed to rest? This is what he wondered as he entered one of the many halls planned to gather the students, some were preparing their beds while others are already in a deep slumber, he also saw some male students flexing their muscles to desperately try impressing the ladies around, which gained them a sickening glare from the blonde.

Wonder if they'll still show their boasted attitude when they'll have to pass that famous trial inside that forest he so much heard of.

He kept a perplexed look at the hall before finally deciding to ask someone about directions, one girl sitting all alone next to a candle was the perfect candidate. With a closer look as the blonde approached her, she revealed to be the same marvelous black-haired girl of earlier, besides the black bow on top of her head, her outfit changed to fancy sleepwear with the same color pattern as her previous costume.

By the way, you can't say Kira was dressed for tonight's occasion as he retained his casual clothes and his luxurious travel bag in his hand still unpacked.

He stood in front of the sitting damsel, who gave him a slight look with her amber cat-like eyes as he shadowed herself and her book from the light.

"Excuse me…" Muttered the boy with a frozen stare at the girl "I was wondering if this is the place where the first-year students must sleep?"

"Yes."

A flat emotionless reply, Kira didn't expect a welcoming greeting but at least he hoped the girl to give more effort in her statement.

The blonde barely got the message that the girl immediately hid inside her novel, resulting in Yoshikage biting his lips as he scrubbed his yellow hair with his fingers by how strong the pure sense of embarrassment itching his chest.

Well, you must give a break to the guy, he's not used to making small talks and seriously, he's not the sole reason why all his attempts at conversation go to failure, if this keeps happening, he'll go really super anti-social and not talk to anybody around here.

The discussion was going to simply end like that until the blond noticed something on the cover page of the book she was reading.

"Is that? If I'm not wrong, **The Man with Two Souls?** That's the first volume, right?"

Kira finally had the affirmation that the girl held more expressions than a stoic glare as she displayed an unexpected surprised stare at the blond, finally showing more of her attractive visage than just the upper-half of it.

"Yeah, it is."

Yoshikage slowly squatted to her level while putting his forearms up to his knees, his movements were slow and steady as he gave great attention at the girl's amber eyes, wondering if she minded if he stayed a bit, she didn't seem to.

This gave him a chance to settle with a more relaxed expression on his face, sensing a warm heat in his chest for talking about one of his hobbies to another individual.

"I found the second part of the novel in a dust store some days ago, I was wondering if you would recommend it to me, give me your thoughts about it or something…"

"Well…" The girl's amber pupils shifted to the side of her eyes with a clear display of embarrassment on her light skin, she seemed to be the same kind of not-pretty-good-at-talking character like Kira, still, the small flattering smile on her lips showed that she was more than welcome to talk about the book. "I'm still on the first half of it but the story is really good so far, very intriguing and captivating. That is only if you like _thrillers_ …"

"How convenient, that's my favorite genre…" Yoshikage unconsciously smiled as he heard the girl's statement. "I guess I should try to find this book somewhere…"

"If you like it, I can lend you my own book if you could fetch me the second one at the store you found it. I myself can't get my hands on the next part…" The girl muttered as her embarrassment slowly faded to reveal a relaxed smirk on her face.

"I'll be glad to do so…"

He simply couldn't take his eyes away from the girl's amber glow and could she, they just stared at each other in silence while calmly smiling, they both felt a very great sense of joy as the shared their literature enthusiasm together, especially for Yoshikage Kira as he never felt this tingling sensation in his chest and the intense pounding of his heart.

Could the boy have found something that he never knew he needed in the first place? Is this what it felt like to make frien-

…

" **HEY! THE CUTE BOY WITH THE BLOND HAIR! OVER HERE! No, I'm not talking about you Jaune!"**

Ugh, good time never last uh?

Anger filled the blonde's purple eyes as he stood up and looked toward the female shouting coming from behind him, there he saw a tall blond-haired young woman seemingly waving her arm toward him with a smile as wide and big as the generous chest behind her orange tank top.

Perverted comment aside, she was dragging with her a much smaller figure, Kira immediately recognized the disoriented and embarrassed face of Ruby Rose behind the blond girl.

" _Goddammit, Yang! You're embarrassing us in front of everyone!"_

The two finally approached Kira and the unknows amber eyed girl looking at them slightly annoyed for interrupting her reading, Ruby immediately hid behind her sister in shame while she was making all the talk with the same joyful grin.

"Helloooo! Sorry to bother you but my sister behind me told me that you two already know each other, is that true?"

"Yes… We fought the robbers at the dust shops…" Awkwardly replied the blond boy uneasily frowning at the two girls, his confusion soon turned into surprise as he saw the blond girl suddenly embracing her little sister with a giant hug seemingly a bit too strong as Ruby's pale face began to turn purple.

"That's just like my sister! She also told me how you have beaten up a whole squad of criminals all by yourself using only a pocket knife! That's amazing!"

"Well…"

"I agree, that's quite impressive…" Followed the bow wearing girl eavesdropping at the discussion, a slight fascinated smile on her face as she heard the whole story with attention, even forgetting the book in her hands.

"Come on, it's not really that astounding, they were only two in the first place…" Replied Kira humbly while waving his hand in front of him, trying his best to dissipate the nerve wreaking attention targeted at him.

"Well, it's still quite extraordinary! Ow, excuse me, I didn't introduce myself! My name's **Yang** and I am the big loving sister of this little cutie pie!" Exclaimed the blonde tightening her grip on Ruby's neck, much to her distaste as the silver eyed girl was trying to escape her sister's strong arms and catch some breath.

"Really? You guys seem a bit too, different…" Muttered Kira with a perplexed stare, they clearly don't seem to be coming from the same parents, but he shouldn't judge in simple facts, genetics is quite complicated though.

"What about you, good looks? What's your name?" Winked Yang as she slightly pulled her tongue in a flirting manner, but out of her expectation, the blond boy didn't seem to be pleased by her question.

"My-My name?" Kira muttered while scratching his head undecided, for a long time he was very careful to reveal anything about him, his name being his top priority as he only gave it to his most trusted connection or at least the most accessible in case his name got thrown around carelessly.

But when he gave his name to Ozpin, he felt a sensation of trust toward him, but not like the same trust he gave to his 'business' partner, it was a warmer kind of trust, an appealing feeling like he was dropping off some heavy weight from his back, like a door opening toward a bright light, like it was something he was destined to do to reach some kind of relief, some kind of _**peaceful life**_.

He was now feeling the same sensation, his mouth wanted only to utter the words but he decided to take a step back and think about it for a second, think about the consequences of revealing his precious identity to two, maybe three persons he just met.

Letting go all his standards and precaution and finally live with no worries, no more time looking at your back wondering if someone is following you.

Then, he finally realized that he already made his choice when he signed the inscription papers to join Beacon, he wanted to see where this road would take him, maybe if he came out of his comfort zone just for this one, he could reach higher grounds he never thought actually existed.

 **Maybe this way he would find in these higher grounds the thing that he so cherished, after all, it is clearly fate that led him to this place.**

The girls kept a confused look as they wondered why he was taking some much time to respond, Kira took a deep breath before finally staring at the two, the same confident smile as always, drawn in his face.

Maybe, it was time to change.

" _ **My name… My name is Yoshikage…"**_


	3. Dead Man's Trial

Yoshikage finally awakened from his deep slumber, his upper body slowly rising from the ground he uncomfortably slept on, his spine was all stiff and needed at least a fifteen minutes massage session.

Even though he experienced much worse ways of living in the many slums around town, that didn't make him any tolerant to sleep on a non-delicately-soft surface, talk about an exigent body…

He kicked off the sheets and glanced around at the many sleeping students surrounding him, sometimes wriggling inside their warm cocoons of clothes while a small fraction of them was empty, suggesting that their owners already woke up.

" _8:05, ugh… I've really overslept on this one…_ " He resentfully muttered while glancing at his personal Scroll next to him.

Yoshikage was very strict about his sleeping habits, but maybe he'll have to give a pass on this one, after all, a long trip by plane and the whole entry to Beacon would obviously make his body more exhausted than normal.

He stood up and began making his daily set of stretches but in a more condensed sense since there isn't much space to make most of his movements, miraculously enough, he realized that he peacefully passed the night without getting kicked everywhere or crushed as he was expecting.

Also, while the other students brought their favorite sleepwear, Yoshikage had to improvise and sleep with the white tank top he was wearing behind his pink pullover, added with it was a pair of random black jogging pants he found inside his bag, with one of the sleeves rolled up to his knee which he immediately corrected.

From all the outfits he wore, this is probably the least elegant one so far but in the same time, he never needed to prepare a special outfit for such thing in the first place, like who's going to keep staring at him during the night?

…

On second thought, it's better to leave this question unanswered.

After a couple of squats, Kira finished his exercising routing by stretching and spinning his back around him, while giving a good view at the hall where all the first-year students like him spent the night.

The curtains were still covering the windows while the sun rays were reflecting on their dark red fabric, giving to the room a dark but also warm atmosphere, Kira could distinguish the blurry silhouette of the students waking up and walking around while the only noises he could hear were some yawning and small discreet talks.

Compared to yesterday, this morning was in fact very, very quiet.

He soon found his eyes in contact with the two supposed 'sisters' Yang and Ruby, the silver eyed girl was calmly enveloped inside her warm bedsheet literally like an eggroll, exhaling a calm little sigh like a child. While on the other hand, just inches next to her, Yang was in a weird position with her blanket covering only one of her feet while her yellow tank top and black short were doing a very poor job to cover her pale white skin, still that didn't seem to bother the girl as her face was deep inside her pillow drooling on it and snoring with no care in the world.

Looking at the two sisters immediately made him recall the events of yesterday when he introduced himself, as expected, they were quite perplexed by the boy's uncanny name.

"Regardless, I think it's a cool name… Suits your… Uuuh… Temperament?" He recalled Ruby complimenting with a kind smile, Yoshikage replied with a small flattered smirk on his face, which suddenly faded into a startled one as soon as he saw Yang suddenly pinching the girl's pale cheeks and starting to stretch them while displaying a naughty grin on her face.

" _Hey! Hey!_ It's me or my baby sister's already trying to catch the big fishes on her first day? I appreciate your bold effort, but expect me to let you get all the pond for yourself!"

" _Ya-Yang… Knock it off!"_

Ruby kept pushing Yang's face with a nerve popping on her forehead while the blonde kept stretching her pale cheeks even more, which ensued into a fight between the two sisters in front of the two spectators of the scene sweat dropping in awkwardness.

Kira facepalmed in frustration, wondering how can these two be actual blood related by how incompatible both their personalities are, the black-haired girl sitting next to his feet agreed to his wondering with a sigh, however, instead of going back at her book, she turned toward the blond boy and spoke to him, her lips forming a slight attracted smirk.

"I agree with Ruby, your name got that uncanny touch in a good way. I think I still didn't introduce myself; my name is **Blake.** "

"Nice to meet you then…" Replied Yoshikage with a nod and an appreciative smile, unfortunately, he must be cursed by a demon because every time he tried the mere effort to approach the girl, somebody interrupted him by shouting out loud like a lunatic.

" **Will you shut the hell up?! Some of us are trying to sleep here!"**

The group suddenly turned toward the newly arrived person, Yoshikage soon realized that the girl he was looking at was the white-haired one he met back at the entrance of Beacon, the one with the dust bottle collection and also the one who gave a ' _frosty_ ' attitude to our protagonist as an introduction.

She was wearing a long icy blue nightgown made of silk, her ponytail untied to leave her long white hair reaches down her back, she was depicting a very fuming stare at the four students, accompanied by her pouting expression which made Kira wonders if her face looks furious like that by default.

"Oh god! Not you again!" She screamed as her eyes turned toward the silver eyed girl in a very strange position with her sister as they suddenly stopped fighting, both starring at the white-haired girl with stupor.

"He-Hey **Weiss**! Nice to see you here…" Chuckled Ruby in embarrassment while trying to free herself from the posture she and Yang were trapped in. "Come on Yang, let go of me!"

"I wish if I could! But I'm stuck here too!" Replied Yang while trying to untangle their intertwined limbs.

"The sentiment is not shared…" Bitterly muttered the now called Weiss, frowning at Ruby with her arms crossed while being unimpressed by the silver eyed girl's lack of grace in the situation she was right in now.

Ruby turned toward Kira as she caught his attention by the finger she was pointing at him. "Hey, I think you two didn't meet properly yet. Weiss, this is Yoshikage. Yoshikage, this is Weiss-"

"I **really** don't care about his name or who he is, I just need you all to shut the hell up!"

"Wow, nice to meet you too…" Simply muttered back the blond boy after the girl's very harsh reply with a vexed glare, this has been the second time the girl gave him a cold shoulder and he's legit wondering if he should put her on the list of people he should stay distant from them.

Yang finally loosened herself from her sister and directed a very piercing gaze at the white-haired girl, her eyes nearly going red to see this pest deliberately bullying her precious little sister.

"Hey! What's your problem with my sister?! She's been trying to be nice with you from the beginning and you keep throwing crap at her!"

"She's a hazard to my health! A complete nuisance!"

" _Hey, guys stop it! Weiss' right, people are trying to sleep!"_ Whispered the silver eyed girl trying to calm the two opponents before giving a quick glance at all the eyes targeted at the scene.

"Oh! Because you're on my side now!" Retorted Weiss completely misunderstanding the girl's hopeless attempt to calm the two.

"She always was on your side!" Jumped the blond tall girl trying to rescue Ruby from this mess, but indirectly making it worse.

"Hey! You cut it out! I'm not talking to a bimbo like you!"

"What did you just call me?!" Shouted the busty blond raising an invisible sleeve on her right arm while tightening her fist and starting to approach the heiress with harm intent, just before Ruby stepped in and tried to calm her enraged sister.

" _Yang! you're making this much worse! Calm down!"_

Yoshikage was slightly anxious toward all the eyes goggling him and his group like they were mentally ill, he then noticed Blake standing up with a very annoyed glare and walking away to somewhere more peaceful.

Seeing her leave soon made the boy realize that he doesn't need to stay here either and chose to do the same as he vanished without a trace, leaving the two sisters alone confronting the raging **Schnee**.

Talking about the _'Ice Queen'_ , Kira realized that she was nowhere near the spot she slept while on a small distance away, Blake was still sleeping with her book resting on her face, god knows how many hours she has passed like that.

* * *

Kira headed toward the bathroom with a small yellow purse in his hands containing all that he needs for his morning preparation: a mint flavoured toothpaste, a blue toothbrush with a small bowling ball drawn on the grip, an exfoliating gel scrub, a moisturizer, a herb-mint facial mask, a long dark red hairbrush, and finally, an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older.

Which he will gladly use once he reaches the bathroom, but the twenty or so long queue in front of him seemed to prove him otherwise, the same thing could be told to the woman's bathroom in the same long corridor, maybe that's the effect of the ' _First day at school_ '.

However, what's the most coincidental was that he was shoulder to shoulder, or rather like shoulder to head since there was a difference of like three to five inches between the two, with none other than the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company.

Kira looked down at the white-haired girl not noticing the tall blond next to her, however, he wasn't displaying any displeased glare at her even though snubbing two times in a row, he simply didn't hold any grudge against her.

But right now, the boy was finally going to decide if she deserves being in that famous list of his or no, she better not fail…

"Good morning." He calmly stated the boy suddenly startling her a bit before she looked at him and recognized his purple eyes with a surprised stare.

"Oh, goo-good morning…" She replied timidly, Kira was quite surprised to not see her with her superior and arrogant demeanor, but he was glad that the girl wasn't a plain douche by default.

Weiss looked away with embarrassment reddening her snow-white cheeks, while the tall blond boy just looked in front of him completely unconcerned by the girl's constant change of expressions.

"So… You're Yoshikage, Ruby and Yang's friend, right?" Muttered the white-haired girl glancing back at him.

"Not their friends… yet." Pointed out the blond with a very stern look. "But you are right, I am Yoshikage, Yoshikage Kira."

"Quite a strange name, does it have any origins from before the **Great War**?"

"Uhm, no idea… Maybe?" At this point, he slightly wondered about the subject, last time he checked, all habitants of Remnant have a certain rule when it comes to names, it must be something related or reminding to a certain color.

But he can't see what color does 'Yoshikage' nor 'Kira' represents, where did his father find such uncanny naming? That if he knew who his father was or if he's still alive.

"I see…" Muttered the white-haired heiress, not very satisfied by the boy's response. The conversation paused in silence as the two took a step forward and abruptly stopped to wait for another ten minutes. Suddenly the girl turned toward Kira and gave him the most courteous stare she could do.

"Such impolite of mine, I didn't introduce myself, I am Wei-"

"Weiss Schnee, daughter of Jacques Schnee, owner of the Schnee Dust Company…"

"You… You are right…" Weiss stared at him in complete bafflement, surprised to meet somebody besides Blake with a wide knowledge of her family here in Vale.

Hopefully to him, she didn't ask him where he knew such things.

"Well, nice to meet you Yoshikage… Kira." Murmured the heiress looking away nervously, which caused Kira to crack an invisible amused smirk, well, better late than never.

"Uuuuh, nice weather, right?" She then declared out of the blue, before realizing with an awkwardness that there were no windows around and that she has been staring at basically nothing.

"Y-Yeah, you're right…." Awkwardly replied the blond boy, looking at the ceiling she was staring while trying to hide the sense of laugh from his mouth, while she tried to hide her incredible shame with the toilet purse in her hands.

You don't need to be a detective to realize that the girl was forcing herself to make small talks with the boy, which made the blond honored to see this girl making so much effort into speaking with him, this whole socializing is honestly fun.

However, one thing that widely caught Kira's sharp light purple eyes as he took a much closer look at the girl's facial features, it was the naughty crooked scar that traversed the eyelids of her left eye, but it wasn't wide or long enough to be noticeable on her cute face.

Kira finally decided to break the ice (hehehe.) and confront the girl about what she was thinking as he targeted a very decisive stare toward her.

"Is there something you want to tell me?"

The girl made a suddenly shocked expression, caught red-handed on her intentions, she finally decided to take a more honest tone and stared at the boy with an apologized look.

"Look, I think we started with wrong foot me and you. I just wanted to say that I am sorry for acting so harsh in front of you…"

"I accept your apology, it's not a big deal, really." Casually responded the blond boy while taking another step then stopping a second time, despite his lack of emotion in his words, Weiss had the slight confirmation that his words were honest which relieved her.

"I don't want people to think I am just a plain lousy rich kid who's too cool for everyone. But god! The people in this place are so… childish!"

"I get where you come from… Nodded Kira with an acknowledgeable nod "But in my opinion, you're overreacting, people are not this bad… like Ruby for exam-"

"Ugh! Don't talk to me about her!" Weiss expression immediately turned to the one Yoshikage was initially used to as soon as she heard the silver eyed girl's name. "She may be not a bad person, but that doesn't mean I need to be all friendly and sugar-coat with her!"

The two took another step forward, then continued their discussion.

"You guys' just badly introduced each other; you should talk to her…"

"What! No way!" Her infuriated stare slowly cooled off as she slightly considered the boy's proposition and simply mumbled. "Maybe, maybe, I'll think about it…"

A moment passed before she flicked her head back at the boy with an extremely worried expression on her cute pale face. "Do you… Do you really think I'm overreacting?!"

Her question made Yoshikage slightly chuckle, which was a first for a very long time, he then shook his head and delivered her a very calm soothing smile that left the heiress agape at how mesmerizing his two purple irises could be.

"Just take it easy… You'll be fine."

Their conversation was soon interrupted as the queue submerged the boy's bathroom's door and began violently hitting it.

" **GODDAMIT JAUNE! COME OUT OF THE FREAKING BATHROOM! NOW!** "

" _Al-Alright guys, just going to take me a minute-hngghaAA_ _ **AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!**_ _"_

Kira and Weiss preferred not to guess what the following disgusting sound coming from the bathroom was, at the same time, the white-haired girl patted the boy's back while praying to his upcoming endeavor.

"Good luck on that one…"

* * *

After a quick tour at the bathroom (which he prefers not to talk about), Kira decided to take a walk around the neighboring gardens just before breakfast, deciding to breathe some fresh air while most people are either still asleep or stuck at the bathroom.

The blond's lungs felt like they were in heaven as they delightfully inhaled the fresh humid air of the early morning, while he felt a tingling sensation around his ears as he heard the soothing bird songs coming from the tree branches.

However, he will quick to realize that he wasn't alone in the garden as he stumbles upon a person seemingly in the middle of some stretching exercise next to a round fountain.

It was a tall red-haired young girl, wearing a brown tracksuit with white strips vertically crossing the sides of her short, he couldn't properly see the front of her head as she was giving her back at him and settled with the long wavy ponytail gently swinging at every movement she made and the large bronze circlet surrounded the top of her head.

She stretched her arms down to her toes making her shirt slides down her shoulders and leaving to Yoshikage a wide view of her midriff and half of her black sports bra, she had a very athletic body given by her toned abs, but still managed to keep her feminine contours.

Her movements were flexible, she didn't find any difficulties reaching the tip of her muscled legs, her spine twisted in the most incredible ways while the lack of body fat around her waist gave her the possibility to perform all of her stretches quite easily.

She must be some kind of high-end athlete or at least a supermodel.

She finally finished her stretches by plucking the fabric of her shorts stuck between her ' _you know where'_ and relaxing her spine before she realized the blond standing behind her as she turned at him with her vivid emerald eyes.

"Oh… Hey." She simply greeted him, surprised by his sudden appearance.

"Hello." Greeted back the blond with an awkward frown, not knowing any other words to say.

"I was just… doing some morning exercise…" She embarrassingly explained while scratching the back of her neck, Yoshikage took him a moment to grasp what she just said before nodding a bit too much.

"Yes, yes, I see that… Um, and I was… taking a walk."

Normally, this is what a pervert says when he's caught red-handed peeking at a girl, but for some reason, the girl looked like she trusted him, I mean what were the chances of finding a beautiful girl doing her exercises at nine AM in the morning?

"Wait, you're a first-year student too, right? I've seen you at the hall yesterday with those two girls yelling at each other."

"Yes, I am…" Yoshikage groaned in embarrassment recalling the events of last night with a bitter taste in his mouth, the redheaded girl giggled at the face he was pulling before smirking at him.

"So, are they like, you're friends or something?"

"No! Absolutely not!" The blond roared while frantically shaking her head, making the redhead give him a perplexed stare.

"I see, ow I forgot to introduce myself, I'm **Pyrrha** , **Pyrrha Nikos** …" The girl switched to a wonderful smile, she wanted to shake his hand but realized that she was all sweaty.

"Yoshikage, Yoshikage Kira…" He muttered as she sees her grabbing a towel on top of the fountain and wiped her neck with it, without realizing that he started to be more relaxed in giving his name to people around.

She was going to know his name anyway.

Pyrrha exhaled a small cloud of air from her mouth due to her high body temperature, then rested her towel on her shoulders and turned to the blond.

"Hey, breakfast is at around five minutes, wanna take a bite with me?"

"Shouldn't you be taking a shower?" The blond boy frowned at her while crossing his arms, he didn't want to be mean, but he simply cannot sustain being around someone smelling like sweat, there's a reason why he refuses to take trains during packed hours.

But despite the harsh remark, the redhead just simply chuckled which left him in surprise.

"I guess you are right, see you at the cantina then?" She waved at Yoshikage before exiting the garden from the nearest building, the last image she gave the blond of her face her kind smile.

Yoshikage just stood there speechless, this girl was so… refreshing, it's like a gentle breeze of air passed next to him.

Her confident stride, her calm demeanor, and this somewhat kind gentle aura beaming out of her…

And the way she happily replied to what supposed to be a very harsh remark, who freaking smiles when somebody tells him to go get a shower?

This girl… he doesn't know why but she earned his attention, and what is this tingling sensation in his chest?

* * *

Breakfast went normal, he didn't have much interesting to say about it besides that the school served very delicious croissants and coffee, some familiar faces were of course in the cafeteria like Yang and Ruby who waved at him, but he pretended like he didn't notice them and just sat somewhere else, he just had this 'weird' desire to eat alone today, nothing else.

That is until somebody stood in front of him while he was taking a sip of his coffee, he looked up to the person and saw a beautiful flock of red hair bundled in a ponytail above two emerald eyes gently staring at him.

"Hey, told you we're going to see each other back at the cantina, mind if I sit here?"

Yoshikage was reluctant to accept but had to comply since it would be rude and he really wasn't planning on being known as the anti-social guy of the school, that would just spark more unwanted attention.

Pyrrha gave him a thankful smirk before she sat at the opposite side of him, she changed her outfit to a brown t-shirt and a pair of white pajama pants with red polka dots on them, meaning that she probably took a shower as she said.

"It has been barely five minutes since I last saw you, how did you shower so fast?" Asked the blond looking down at his wristwatch with a perplexed frown, Pyrrha giggled at his question.

"Navy shower, but I would've come much faster if my hair didn't take so long to dry, you know how things are with us girls and our long hair…"

Kira knew about navy showers, ninety-second tops and effective enough to clean the sweat after a good training session. Unfortunately, the blond cannot take a shower in such little time since he had too many hygiene treatments to fit in such little time slot even with much optimization.

Pyyrha peeked over Yoshikage's shoulder for a bit and noticed Ruby and Yang in the distance giving stealthy glances at the blond and muttering to each other. "Those two girls over there, they're the one who were with you last night, are you sure you're not friends with them?"

"No." Immediately replied Yoshikage with a harsh tone as he was taking a bite of his croissant, he didn't even give a glance at the two girls she was mentioning which made the redhead sternly glare at him.

"You don't seem to have a lot of friends, do you?"

"How about you?" Quickly diverted the blond while taking a sip from his coffee mug, the speed at which he replied left the girl stunned for a bit before replying to him with a chuckle.

"Well, I left most of them at Mistral, but I don't think that's going to last…"

"Why's that?"

Pyyrha eyes widen at the boy's oblivious stare, like if he asked her what's two plus two.

"It's because I'm really, really famous?"

"Is that so?" Pyyrha felt a tad of mockery coming from Yoshikage, as if he wasn't buying one bit about her being a celebrity in Remnant and stuff, the redhead could only frown in confusion at the boy's uncanny conduct.

"Yo-You don't know who I am?"

"Hm, previously, yes…" He confessed with an uneased frown, that's the second time somebody asks him the same question in a short amount of time. Pyrrha pulled out a shocked face like he just told her that he didn't know who professor Ozpin was.

"Top graduate at Sanctum Academy? Winner of the Mistral regional tournament four times in a row? Doesn't ring any bell?"

"Maybe I have some memories of seeing you somewhere, but I don't watch the news that much, so in overhaul, nah…"

"I'm literally the mascot of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes!" She inadvertently shouted at Yoshikage while snatching a cereal box off the table and pointing at her image on the cover.

"I don't eat cereals, I prefer oatmeal, good for your health." He simply commented not dropping that unimpressed expression off his face, but it soon changed as he frowned at the redhead with slight concern. "You seem to be very sensible about your celebrity status…"

Pyrrha's cheeks suddenly flushed as she started waving her hands in front of her. "No-No! Not at all! It's just… feel weird meeting somebody not knowing you."

She rested her arms on the table and looked down for a moment, now that she remembers back at the garden, Pyrrha definitely thought that he was some kind of stalker creeping up on her at first just before she noticed his subtle glare like he wasn't expecting her to be present, he neither exalted any gasp of excitement when he saw her turn around and just kept that blank stare at him.

"I just got here for 24 hours and I've already got dozens of fans asking me for autographs, it was simply out of luck that I got to the garden all alone this morning…"

She didn't need to pull that depressed look to make Yoshikage feel pity for her, while her exploits and talents justified her celebrity status, he simply cannot imagine being in the same shoes as her, just the idea of it gave him chills down his spines. Maybe that was the reason for all those glances and small talks he kept detecting around their table.

Pyrrha brushed her dark thoughts away and switched to a smile, how quick she regained her cheerful demeanor slightly impressed the blond. "Anyway, are you ready for this morning's test?"

"The one at **Emerald Forest** , right?"

Pyyrha nodded. "I was wondering how it's going to go, like, how are we going to be split up as teams?"

Kira dropped his croissant mid-bite and looked at her widely perplexed. "Excuse me?"

Pyrrha's eyebrows slightly lifted in surprise before explaining to him with a weirded-out tone. "Um, we were told during the welcoming speech of yesterday that we will be split into different groups for the rest of the school years… You weren't there did you?"

"N-No…" He blurted out as his traits suddenly tensed up and a small drop of sweat appeared on his forehead before slowly sliding down his left cheek, despite the coldblooded demeanor remaining on his face, he knew that deep inside him was in a pure state of dread.

And that old goddamn geezer definitely wouldn't tell him about it in fear that the blond would refuse to enter his academy.

What scam is this?! He signed up for the word _'Huntsman'_ not _'Huntsmen'_ , all that he wanted was a decent school life, the bearable bull crap coming from his peers for eight hours, and finally, the relaxing time between the four walls of his **private** room all **alone** with nobody to **bother him**.

It's no surprise that Yoshikage is a big introvert, he always was a lone wolf since as much as he can remember and knew how to be the most efficient in his ' _work_ ' without caring about anybody's else well-being.

Right now, he could either bail out and go back to his old habitude of constant relocation and running away, or have to sustain not one, but three other complete strangers who will surely turn out to be annoying morons.

Come on, there has to be something he could about it…

The sudden wave of anxiety condensing on his chest made him instinctively start biting the nail of his right thumb, which attracted the attention of the redhead in front of him in a rather worried tone.

"He-Hey, Yoshikage, are all right?"

He didn't reply to her and just kept nibbling his thumb, this is where his expression finally broke down into pure panic as his eyes widen and his forehead soak in sweat, his lips started to take a weird red color until Yoshikage realized that it was blood that he was tasting and suddenly stood up from his seat under Pyrrha's staggered look.

"I-I need to get going!"

And he suddenly disappeared, leaving the girl with a last glimpse of his bloodied finger.

* * *

Kira entered the locker room with a rather grim look on his face, he didn't give even a small glance at the students around him preparing for the upcoming initiation test.

Inside the room, he strolled around looking for his locker's number he memorized in his mind, '145', which meant he didn't have to take much time to find it since it was in the fourth range of lockers on his right.

His expression soon relaxed to its usual neutral state as he tipped the code on the locker's touchpad and opened it, while inside the other students' lockers were all kinds of firearms and blades all more obnoxious than the other.

Inside Yoshikage Kira's locker was… his knife, just a simple switchblade knife, thing looked like a freaking toothpick compared to his other peers' arsenal.

A knife that seemed to intrigue a person nearby him due to the uncanniness of seeing it somewhere else than in a kitchen or a junkie's throat for the more extreme cases.

"Are you really going to take that to the test?" Kira immediately discerned Yang's voice as he looked toward her laying a shoulder on her locker, arms and legs crossed and giving him a very skeptic look, the blond kept gazing at her then at the flamboyant combat outfit she was wearing, a tan jacket buttoned above a yellow crop top with two similarly colored bracelets on each wrist, followed by a pair of black shorts barely covering her thighs.

Of course, she wasn't going to fight in her sleepwear goddammit.

"You may have beaten up a couple of guys with it, but we're talking about **big ass monsters** over there…" She pointed to her hair-related companion; Kira's lips spread into a confident smile to indicate her that she doesn't have to worry about him while hiding the switchblade inside the palm of his right hand like a magician.

"Hey, nice trick you got there…" Complimented the blonde girl as she noticed Kira's small magic trick. "How did you do that?"

"Sorry, but it's a **secret**." He simply replied with his confident smirk still unfazed as he closed his locker with a strong push. Yang made a slight grimace at the boy's response, her attention then switched to his outfit, it seems like this guy has a special outfit for every single occasion.

He was now wearing a dark blue polo shirt with short sleeves and an unbuttoned collar revealing his white tank top, along with a pair of dark gold jeans and brown leather boots to cover his feet.

He genuinely looks like he's going to a stroll in the city rather than fighting monsters with that casual attire of him, like seriously, how does he expect those fingerless gloves in his hands stop the attack of a raging monster?

"Are you really going just like that?" Asked the blond girl looking up and down to his untraditional outfit, the girl always had a crush to strong men fighting with less than no weapons, however, this guy clearly doesn't have the physical strength to fight anything bigger than an average human being.

Out of her expectation, Kira just simply replied with a nonchalant "Yes." before turning his back at her confused stare and walking away adjusting his leather gloves, while Yang admired his confidence and optimism, she really cannot see how he'll succeed in whatever the heck he's planning on doing, which only gave him this image of overconfident prick that made the blonde annoyingly frown at him.

Yoshikage then passed by Weiss talking to Pyrrha and that blond clumsy kid he keeps seeing wandering around like he's lost or something, is he even part of this school in the first place? He preferred avoiding eye contact with Pyrrha and the others since the bizarre stunt of this morning until he was suddenly dragged by the elbow toward the trio.

"We can get Yoshikage to join our group too if you like!" Shouted an enthusiastic Weiss to a surprised redhead while grabbing a confused Yoshikage by the elbow, he turned toward her with an annoyed glare while trying to figure out what is happening right now. "Uhm, why me in particular?"

"Maybe because you're the only guy in this whole school who seem to not be completely _braindead_?" She muttered between her teeth while displaying a wide smile faker than superstar's breast implants and targeting the last part of her statement toward the other less charismatic blond in front of them. Pyrrha's look of bewilderment immediately faded as she laid eyes on Yoshikage and switched to a slightly worried one.

"Hey, Yoshikage, you really scared me when you ran away earlier, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry about what happened…" Awkwardly chuckled Kira scratching the back of his head. "I had _things_ to do, so…"

"Oooooh! So, you guys already know each other, that's good!" Weiss enthusiastically began pushing the blond inside the group "I'm 100% you guys will get along very well, I'll leave you two here so you can know each other better, see ya!" Before leaving, she gave a quick wave toward the two, while a half-jubilant, half-demonic smile drew on her face as she departed away. Pleased to see her plan to form the greatest team in all Beacon Academy going immensely well.

Kira just stood here for a second embarrassingly silent like the other two, during that time, his purple eyes caught the surprising change of the redhead's casual outfit, now wearing a set of bronze and leather armor, mixed with fabrics having the same color as her hair, as well a shield and a sword attached to her back sharing the same color pattern as her armor.

It was like she was going to fight in an arena, which makes sense since this is kinda where they are all going.

In comparison, the blonde boy next to her clearly didn't seem to be fit for the upcoming battle, he may be more prepared than Yoshikage and own an actual sheathed sword to defend himself, but come on, a pair of jeans and a hoodie?

"So, um, excited for your first fight?" Stuttered Pyrrha giving to Yoshikage a small smirk, the blond could only do but awkwardly smile back and reply with the same way. "Y-Yeah, kinda."

Hopefully, their cringy conversation was soon interrupted when the other blond finally built enough courage to approach Kira and stretch an arm toward him, trying his best to introduce himself.

"Hey, I'm **Jaune** … **Jaune Arc**... Nice to meet you…" He then tried to pull a half-assed cocky grin and continued. "An-And I don't want to sound smug, but there's already an incredibly handsome blond walking in this side of the academy." His poor attempt to impress the redhead next to her was met with her awkward smile and a frowned glare from Yoshikage.

The poor boy was definitely expecting a punch or an insult coming from Kira, but instead, he wasn't even giving attention to what he just said and simply replied to him without even bothering to shake Jaune's hand.

"You're the guy who plugged the men's toilets this morning, right?"

Jaune's face suddenly jumped at Kira's statement before waving his arms in extreme awkwardness while he kept blabbering a justification next to the redhead who couldn't help it but exhale a giggle.

"Wai-Wait! It's because I ate something weird back at yesterday's dinner, so I felt sick y'know…"

"You're also the guy who kept vomiting all around the airship back at the arrival, 'Vomit boy' they called you…"

Pyyrha tried her best to withhold the burst of laugh coming from deep her throat while Jaune's face turned as red as the girl's hair locks.

"Co-Come on man… I have motion sickness, it's a normal thing…"

While Kira could admit that he didn't take Jaune's random jokes very lightly, he wasn't saying these things as a way to mock or belittle the poor boy but to simply state the facts as they were without expecting him to act up like that.

The speakers hanged around the locker room began to ring a slight dull tune to attract the students' attention, followed by the voice of Ms. Goodwitch.

" _All first-grade students are requested to follow the instructors that will lead you to the location of the upcoming initiation exam."_

"Welp, that's our call…"

All students immediately headed to the room's exit, Kira's traits soon darkened the same way they did when he entered the room, wondering what kind of test it will be.

* * *

All the students were gathered on top of a tall grassy cliff overlooking the wide vegetation of Emerald Forest, the sky was bright blue and cloudless, flocks of birds were flying around elegantly and the wind was fresh and delightful. This was a very suitable day to take a walk around the dense green beauty down there, however, our heroes knew that they will not be taking that kind of 'walking'…

Kira was standing between two unknown students who he didn't care about and just treated them as **black silhouettes**. He gave a quick glance at the steel plate he was ordered to put his feet on, wondering what's the use of it and why did they put such thing on top of a cliff while the whole exam is going down there, his glance then switched to professor Ozpin explaining the premise of the exam.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well."

So far, Kira cannot see someone he could work with besides himself, none of the people he met grabbed his attention besides Pyrrha, Ruby, Yang, and Blake, and still, the blond doesn't feel like he could properly team up with them. That was just within his nature, nature he, unfortunately, has to overcome if he wanted to succeed in this school.

"That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

Yoshikage already mentally prepared himself for the revelation, he left the whole breakdown scenario to the poor Ruby standing a bit far to his right, still, he thought the idea of first eye contact completely foolish, this was no more a trial of skill but just sheer luck. Get yourself paired with a bad teammate and your entire school year is gone to dust, the only best strategy he seems to think of is to keep your eyes closed during all of the exams.

"After you've partnered up head to the north end of the forest, you will find a temple where your objective is located. Along the way, you will meet ferocious opposition, do not hesitate to eliminate every single hostile creature on your path, or you will **die**."

He's telling this just frighten them, is he? There's no way he's not going to endanger his students' life on their second day of school.

"You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene." How relieving, not only they will get their arse tracked by all kinds of monster, but all this will be filmed like a reality show, superb. "You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics, each pair must choose one of them and return to the top of the cliff. Any questions?"

"Ummm, sir?"

"Good, now take your position."

Kira lifted an eyebrow at what the headmaster just said, but before he could even utter a single word, the students positioned on his left all blasted in the air with just a microsecond of an interval between each other until it was his own turn to fly in the air at an incredible speed.

So that's why they told him to prepare a landing strategy...

Yoshikage stabilized himself in mid-air and began experiencing this splendid instant, he didn't give any attention at the students propelling in the air around him and just simply enjoyed the gasp of wind delightfully flowing through his blond strands as he spread his arms and acted like he was flying. However, gravity soon took over as he realized he was getting closer to the tall tree trunks submerging the forest's ground.

Cursing between his teeth, he covered his face with both arms as his upper body converged with the weak branches and started flinching in pain as he began feeling the branches getting thicker and thicker while falling down.

Suddenly, a blast occurred on the trunk next to him which unexpectedly projected his body to a completely different direction, he then began bouncing around like a freaking rubber ball until he finally slammed on the ground with a solid **'THUMP'**.

The dust submerging him began to clear off and revealed the blond boy standing on his feet completely unscathed despite his violent collision with all his surroundings. It was like some **strange powers** protected him from the damages and absorbed his fall.

"Jeez, I don't think that's a good landing strategy…" He muttered as he kept sweeping the dirt from his clothes.

"Now to find these relics and somebody to partner with… Maybe."

* * *

" _ **Ugh!**_ I can't believe Ruby ran away and left me here all alone…" Rambled an irritated white-haired heiress deep inside the forest while she was making herself a path through the thick bushes and branches with **Myrtenaster**.

"What a bi- ***** _cough_ ***** " She immediately censored herself as she realized such obscene word was going to come from her noble mouth, then soon cooled off and focused on her objective, her eyes twitching everywhere as she scanned every leaf and trunk in search of her black-haired 'partner', or at least of one the red petals she leaves on her way.

However, her attention soon switched to one of the bushes around her as she heard growls coming from her surroundings, she kept an anxious eye at the slight movements she perceived through the dense vegetation but couldn't figure out what it was.

Little by little, the noises became more resounding, the movements more frenetic and faster, Weiss swallowed her saliva as her eyes widened in terror, she tried her best to follow the growls and movements, but they were so fast and so numerous that she couldn't keep track of them.

And just in front of her, a giant bush kept shaking around, its perturbing aura caressing her cheek left the girl petrified in pure terror, she couldn't even exhale the air stuck in her lungs…

 _ **ゴ**_

 _ **ゴ**_

 _ **ゴ**_

 _ **ゴ**_

 _ **(SFX: Menacing.)**_

Suddenly, something violently grabbed her elbow and dragged her inside the dark green bush on her right before she could even utter a single yelp, she kept struggling to escape from the arms warped around her while trying to wave her rapier around until she finally realized that the hand muffling her mouth was actually human, she then looked up where she saw a set of golden hair hanging over a pair of piercing purple eyes looking through the leaves of the bush.

Kira soon released his grip on the girl as she stopped twitching around and making noises, he put his index on his mouth to indicate Weiss to stay quiet then pointed it toward the outside of the bush.

" _Shhhhhh… Something's coming…"_

The girl looked toward where the blonde pointed, two long black legs filled with dark fur were walking just centimeters from their hiding spot, accompanied with growls and pants from whatever the owner of those legs, the growl began to drift away from their position until they stopped being heard once and for all, giving them the green light to finally come out of their hiding.

Weiss was first to come out while she was taking out a few leaves and branches stuck on her hair and dress, she then turned toward the blonde following her and gave him an unkind glare.

"I could've taken this one out myself without you creeping around!"

The _Ice_ _Queen's_ venomous remark didn't affect the blonde as he just stayed silent while taking out a small wooden stick off his hair, it was a matter of time before the girl's hostile gaze began to deflate and faded to a pouting one as she finally admitted her thankfulness toward his help, as he expected.

"Bu-But thanks, anyway…"

Suddenly, another cracking sound caught the two soon-to-be huntsmen by surprise which they immediately turned toward it, readying themselves to fight whatever it was until they immediately stopped as they saw in dazzlement the thing, or actually, the person in front of them.

"Ru-Ruby?!" Shouted the white-haired heiress as she sees Ruby frightened to see the initially menacing look the two gave her when she accidentally stepped on a wooden branch as she tried to approach them.

"Weiss! You can't believe how long I've been looking for you after that you disappeared from my sight!" Her silver eyes then switched toward the confused blonde standing next to her teammate and gave him a quick wave. _"Oh hai Yoshikage!"_

Kira responded back with a wave who was soon obscured by Weiss' uncannily boiling red face, her enraged voice suddenly becoming as shrill as a crow's cry. "What do you mean by **I** the one who disappeared?! I tried my best to follow you between all that teleportation you've been doing until you completely disappeared out of nowhere and left me all alone!"

Ruby backed in terror as she sees the furious girl approaching her and pointing a sharp finger toward her chest, however, she immediately grew tired of the girl's accusations and gave her own displeased look at the heiress. "Wow wow! Last time I checked; I was the one who was following you! It's not my fault if you got lost in the woods! _Princess!_ "

"Well, it's not my fault if my teammate is completely braindead and can't keep up with someone close without wandering around like a little girl!"

"Who do you call little girl?! I'm barely two years younger than you as a reminder!"

Yoshikage backed away from the girl's shouting as he preferred not to intervene between them, however, he soon regretted sticking with them this long as he began hearing new noises and growls coming from all the bushes around them, this time it wasn't just one approaching them.

All around them were horrifying creatures appearing from the dark shadows they were blending in, their red evil eyes carefully eyeing the three students like hopeless sheep ready to be eaten to the bone, not for the sake to appease their hunger, but only for the satisfaction to end a person's life, because these monsters were only drawn toward sadness and misery.

 **Grimm** was the name the people of Remnant called them, Kira has seen them many times on television and books, however, he never encountered a real one before, which he would have liked if it stayed that way, now that he is completely ambushed by a herd of them.

If he's guessing right, these ones were called **Beowolves** , looks like a mix between a bear and a werewolf. A whole pack of them was surrounding the three teenagers, marching around them at a slow pace while growling and showing their sharp fangs at their prey.

"Goddammit! You have attracted the whole forest toward us thanks to your constant screams and yelping! Good job Ruby!"

"What?! I'm the one who kept screaming from the beginning?!"

"Still! I'm not the one who got the most irritating and loud voice in all of this forest!"

"Look who's talking! You're the person who keeps screeching like a dinosaur!"

"How dare you resembling my chanting vocals to one of a dinosaur! You little bi-"

" **Shut up! both of you!** **Your barking will only make this situation worse!"** Yoshikage couldn't contain the anger he was feeling and just spewed it all toward the girls suddenly jumping in fright at his sudden shift of mood before immediately keeping their mouths shut, traumatized by seeing a whole other side of Yoshikage Kira's usual calm and reserved demeanor roaring at them.

"Well, I guess it's about time we take down some monsters…" Muttered Ruby with a smirk while pulling out the scythe of her Crescent Rose and facing one side of the pack approaching them, relieved to finally test her skills against a Grimm.

" _Of course, like a little kid, you must be all excited to fight these things…_ " Weiss whispered between her teeth as she drew her rapier at the Beowolves in front of her and decided it would be wiser if she released all her anger on them.

Kira frowned as he took the opposite side of the heiress and summoned his switchblade while still regretting not making a run for it as soon as he could, but now that he is trapped, he's definitely not going to lose this one.

One of the Beowolves targeted the blond and walked toward him, the beast was standing in about one to two feet above his head, still, that didn't discourage him, if this monster wants a piece of him, it better has to prepare for one hell of a fight.

And Kira's wish was granted as the monster roared and jabbed its right clawed arm in direction of him, which he swiftly dodged and dashed down toward the Grimm's waist where he gave him a quick flick of his switchblade, he then ended his dodge with a roll on the ground and looked toward his prey screaming in pain while glancing at the wound he made on the monster's black flesh.

As he expected, the monster wasn't bleeding, nothing but darkness was inside that cut like he was made of dark matter, the only thing he saw was a flock of black particles gushing from the injury when he made the cut.

After a few cries of pain, the Beowulf just turned toward the blonde like nothing happened, making the blonde slightly anxious as he could feel he made the monster even angrier.

The Grimm tried the same attack once again and failed as the boy leaped back and left the creature to shove its fist inside the dirt, Kira immediately decided to retaliate as he continued his leap toward a tree trunk behind him and use it to propel himself in the air in direction to the Beowulf's head.

However, Kira probably underestimated the monster's reflexes and speed as it didn't find any difficulty grabbing in him in midair, the blond grit his teeth and thrust his knife inside the Grimm's arms thinking it would drop him but in vain, he then tried to puncture the thick bone structure forming his face but with no success as well.

In the end, he just shoved his knife inside the monster's throat which finally affected the monster but not for his liking as the creatures literally slammed him on the ground and started roaring in pain as the knife was stuck in its neck.

Yoshikage probably felt his spine breaking apart due to that hit, he tried to stand up but the monster was directly in front of him. The blond simply couldn't dodge the powerful claw descending on his exposed self, leaving him with a shredded right forearm as he hopelessly tried to shield himself with it but that only made him more vulnerable for the next blow as the Grimm now used both his clawed arms to attack the boy.

There was no one who could save him, Ruby and Weiss were already busy with their own share of Beowolves to take down, everything was settled for the boy's unfortunate fate, and still, he had the audacity to depict a very calm demeanor despite the claws just mere inches from gouging his kidneys out

At this moment, a **strange glowing dark magenta fog with pink outlines** began radiating from the boy's silhouette. And then suddenly, something completely unexpected, **a complete Deus Ex Machina**.

 _ ***BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARP***_

Out of nowhere, **a pair of bright pink arms** materialized from Kira's back and restrained the Beowulf's arms, the Grimm kept a dumbfounded stare at the two hands effortlessly grabbing his claws despite it giving out all the power it got.

The blond just casually stood up on his feet and stared at the monster with a glare that would frighten even death itself, he didn't seem to be astonished or even caring about the two arms coming from the back of his shoulders like a pair of wings.

In fact, he decided to use this new set of arms to lift himself up in from the ground and give a strong kick at the monster with both his legs, however, it wasn't his actual legs who sent the kick but another **couple of limbs** colored the same way as the ghostly arms expanding from his knees and violently ramming inside the Beowulf's front jaw, literally shattering the front of his skull and pushing his mandible deep inside his cranium.

The Grimm immediately dropped dead, its corpse kept twitching around for a bit since half of its face was freaking stuffed inside its brain, or whatever what inside that head.

The strange pink arms and legs immediately returned inside the dark purple smoke before slowly fading away as well, Kira wasn't in a slight bit creeped out at what just happened right now and just kept indifferently glancing at his defeated foe.

He then turned toward the two girls to see how they were doing; Ruby was giving the final blow at a Beowolf laying on the ground while Weiss strapped back her sword after fatally puncturing the chest of another one of them.

Kira just kept staring in disbelieve at all the dead Grimms swarming the ground and slowly vaporizing in thin air, it was hard to imagine it but the two girls actually cleared the whole place from the pack of Grimms all by themselves, while he was barely struggling with only one of them.

In his defense, his **ability** can only be focused on one foe, still, Kira had to admit that they've proved to be extremely talented.

"I hope you don't mind that we took down the rest while you were busy with that Grimm…" Explained the black-haired girl with an apologized smile, feeling a bit ashamed to have taken most of the action for herself and Weiss.

"It also looked like you had a bit of difficulty too… At one point, we even though we had to get you out of that Beowulf's claws." Kira agreed with the heiress' point of view, fighting things of his size is challenging but a bit easy, fighting giant creatures of darkness and death, on the other hand, was a whole other story.

"Actually, it's my first time fighting the Grimm…" He confessed while scratching his left cheek with a nervous grin.

"What really?!" Exclaimed the black-haired girl while the heiress next to her only sighed and looked at him in disbelief. "Then why the hell did you get in this school in the first place? Ugh whatev', just stay close with us for the time being, let's go find these relics…"

The two girls casually walked away while the blond stood back for it a bit, fortunately, they didn't notice the right hand he hid behind him, the gruesome wound shredding his flesh was leaking pools of blood behind him with no signs of healing back as his **Aura** should be doing… **If he had one**.

He simply cannot afford to attract his peers' attention about **that** for now.

* * *

"Ummm… Did your sister just fell from the sky?" Asked a stoic-looking Blake to her blond partner, Yang didn't reply to her question and just mentally agreed that yes, her sister just felt from the sky after that she jumped off from a **Nevermore** before crashing to a tree due to an unidentified object slamming at her.

"Hi-Hi Ruby…" Gasped out an exhausted Jaune to the girl sitting next to him before passing out on top of the branch he was laying on. Ruby slowly descended from the tree she was stuck on and jumped toward her sister with a wide smile.

"YANG!"

"Ruby where have you been?" Asked the busty blonde worryingly while holding her little sister in a tight embrace, Ruby pulled out her pale face from Yang's generous chest and gave her an embarrassed smile.

"Well, I-"

But soon enough, their moment of reunion was suddenly interrupted as out of nowhere, a growling twelve-foot-tall **Ursa** just stormed out of the thick foliage and began twirling around, on top of him was an orange-haired girl riding the beast like in a rodeo. Suddenly, the monster seemed to be electrified by pink sparkles before collapsing on the ground, much to the orange-haired girl's dismay. "Aw… It's broken…"

Shortly afterward, a young man with black hair with some of his strands dyed in pink to resemble a sharp line at the side of his head appeared behind the dead carcass of the Ursa, seemingly exhausted after following around his obnoxiously energetic partner.

" **Nora** … Please don't do that, ever again…" He panted before remarking that the girl literally disappeared from her previous spot, soon found her in front of the temple chanting like a fantasy princess with a golden rook piece on her head until she got woken up from her dream by her partner once again.

"NORA!"

The girl just made a slight giggle and ran toward the boy with a wide smile on her face. "Coming **Ren**!"

Jesus Christ, good thing Yoshikage wasn't around or he would probably blow his brains out the moment he saw that annoying girl spasming around.

"Did that girl just came riding an Ursa?" Blake's question was left unanswered once again as another grumbling noise coming from the woods and a giant scorpion appeared, following a young redheaded girl running as fast as she could. Pyyrha jumped from the ground to dodge another attack of the monster before briefly rolling on the ground and resuming her sprinting pace.

"Did that girl just came running all the way here with a **Death Stalker** on her tail?"

At this point, Yang just burst into shrill anger after getting really fed up by everything happening a tad too fast and too weird, her eyes turning into a crimson shade.

" **UGH! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! CAN YOU GUYS CHILL OUT FOR TWO SECONDS BEFORE SOMETHING STRANGE AND WEIRD POPS OUT OF NOWHERE?!"**

As she kindly demanded, two seconds precisely passed before something suddenly came down from the sky like an asteroid and smashed a pillar near their position before ricocheting on the ground with a solid ' **THUMP'**.

"Aaah it's a meteorite!" Cried Nora while hiding behind Ren in genuine terror. "No! It's a UFO! We're getting invaded!"

While the girl was tripping in a panic about what it could have been, Kira stood up from his point of impact rubbing his head with a slight grunt. "I should _really_ find a better landing strategy…" While he was dusting off his pants, his eyes met with somebody running toward him at an incredible speed.

"Pyyrha?"

"Yoshikage! Run!" The redhead shouted while passing next to his confused face, it was a matter of time before he realized what was the giant thing that the girl was running from.

"Oh, fuck me…" Sighed the blond looking more genuinely tired than panicked before he began sprinting at the same direction as the redhead, he soon caught up with her and was intending to ask her where the hell she found this thing before both got suddenly propelled in the air by a swift hit from the Death Stalker.

Both students were leaping in the air before crashing below the surprised stare of the other students.

" _I just want a room of my own…_ "

Those were the only words that slipped through his exhausted sigh, just before he finally stood up with Pyyrha and looked at the students gathering, his sight mostly focused on the new faces, especially Nora's who was giving a wave a bit too frenetic and cheerful for the blond's taste and left him awkwardly glaring at her, somebody should probably lay off the coffee for a while…

"Looks like you got quite a rough day…" Commented Yang with a joking smirk, which Kira replied while rubbing his neck. "Tell me about it…"

"Well, at least you came just in time for all of us to die…" Kira couldn't believe the girl could still pull out one of her a witty joke despite the horrible situation they were all in, her sarcastic demeanor was really not helping them with the giant scorpion approaching them.

"So, what do we do now?" Asked Jaune finally joining the group after trying to save Weiss from crashing on the ground after that she jumped off the Nevermore as Ruby told her. "Anybody got a plan or something?"

Yoshikage was going to suggest running the F out of here before Ruby stepped in and cocked the handle of the sniper rifle within her Crescent Rose, depicting a severe glare at the monster. "I've got one, watch me!"

And as fast as a lightning bolt, she dashed toward the Death Stalker using the gun of her scythe to propel herself even faster, assigning a powerful smash with her weapon the moment she was in range of the monster, but it seemed like it barely tickled the Grimm's skull as he didn't flinch not a single bit, but he didn't take it well either as he gave her a severe smack with one of his claws, violently slamming her on the ground like a pancake.

Finally realizing her mistake, she soon stood up and began running back toward her friends while the Death Stalker was following her still pissed at her. And like that wasn't enough, the Nevermore came back and started chasing the girl too.

In a panic, Yang immediately sprinted toward her sister to save her from the mess she put herself in, Kira winced anxiously as he felt something bad was going to happen.

Unfortunately, his intuition was right as he saw the giant dark bird launching hundreds of pointy feathers at the ground with a flap of his wings, the feathers stuck on the field like spears with one of them piercing Ruby's red cloak and sticking her on the ground. Like that wasn't enough, the feathers reached Yang and completely obstructed her path, now looking at her sister struggling to take out her cape from the ground while the Death Stalker was approaching her.

"Ruby! Get the hell out of here!"

"I'm trying!"

"This is bad…" Muttered Yoshikage looking at the scene like a strange sense of panic rose up from his chest.

Suddenly, his right foot did the unthinkable and made a step forward before he froze to make another, wondering if it was worth the risk to step in and do something, he barely met these people and here is planning to do something he never did in his life, save another person. But in the same, he felt that strange sensation in his chest just kept increasing, like a blazing flame roaring and urging him to do something about it, a heroic spirit he never knew he had inside him.

" _Ugh, fuck it…_ " It seems like this burning feeling tortured the blond far enough to the point he began sprinting toward the damsels in distress while cursing himself on his poor choice of thinking. " _Me and my suicidal thoughts…_ "

However, before he could reach the endangered Ruby, a white blur passed next to him and intervened at Ruby's impending doom, Weiss used her rapier to create a wall of ice trapping the Death Stalker's tail and saving her partner, with a very stern look toward Ruby of course.

Kira felt somewhat of relief to see the scythe-wielder all fine thanks to the Schnee's heiress, he finally decided to reach Yang and help her get out from the pointy feathers, at the same time, he glanced back toward the duo and saw Weiss extending her hand toward Ruby to help her get up, which cracked a slight smirk on Yang's face.

"Seems like they are finally getting along…" Yoshikage agreed with Yang before he sees her rushing toward her sister to crush her between her strong arms. Soon enough, all of them came back to the temple where their companions were worried sick, however, there was no time for the party as the Nevermore came back toward the group.

"I never thought you were the heroic type Yoshikage…" Complimented Pyyrha with a melodically impressed grin, Blake nodded in agreement but her, on the other hand, was eyeing the blond with an unconvinced glare. "Me too, that's seemed _very_ strange… Too strange in my opinion."

"I guess it's because of the adrenaline…" Yoshikage blandly tried to justify his sudden bravery with an indifferent grimace, followed by a suddenly startled stare as Yang gave a firm shove at the Yoshikage's shoulder with a wide laugh. " _Hehe_ , how convenient! I get this kind of feeling too sometimes! I guess it's related to our hair color, right?"

"I-I don't think so…" Simply muttered the blond not agreeing one bit at Yang's suggestion, which left her quite disappointed.

"Heroic or not, I'm the one who saved Ruby I remind you!" Jumped Weiss crossing her arms in a bragging stance, the others turned toward her and acted as they agreed with her with giggles and nods just to please the princess' self-righteous demeanor.

"Uhm guys? I pretty much think we shouldn't stay here any longer…" Indicated Jaune pointing up at the black bird flying towards them with a slight perturbated face.

"What are we waiting for, our objective is just in front of us!" Everyone followed Weiss' idea and walked towards where the chess pieces were put, each pair taking one of the artifacts, however, there was a problem that bothers Yoshikage.

"Ummm what about me? I still didn't find a teammate to partner with…" He muttered looking at the chess pieces quite perplexed.

"What?! How can someone like you didn't find a partner yet?" Yang shouted with her mouth hung open in disbelief, for some reason, everyone had the same thought as they were all looking at the blond boy with the same surprisingly shocked expression, which Kira didn't understand why and only made him more nervous.

"Well, the least thing you can do now is pick up an artifact, who knows maybe you'll find somebody to pair with on the way back…" Kira had nothing to do but agree with Ruby's idea, so he chose an artifact for himself, it was a black knight, he kept looking at between his fingers with worry. While all the persons around were paired up, he wondered what kind of teammates he will be with at the end of the exam.

"Well, everybody got their pieces, let's get the hell out of here…"

Blake's words probably reached the Death Stalker as he finally pulled out his stinger from the wall of ice and headed toward the group of students running toward the cliff. Their trek took them to some stone ruins where they were pinpointed by the Nevermore blocking the access to the stone bridge leading to the cliff while the Death Stalker caught up with them and basically prohibited the group to turn back.

Yoshikage winced in frustration as he looked at the two monsters blocking them on both sides, this time it wasn't a question of bravery, now he really has to do something and work with the others if he wanted to get out of here alive, this time, he was the one stepped in before Ruby could say anything.

"I'll try to slow the Death Stalker; you guys try to make a run toward the bridge or take care of the Nevermore…"

"Wait, how are you going to take care of that monster?!" Shouted Weiss, stupefied by Kira's unpredictable move, the blond only looked at her with a serious look on his face. "Watch me!" He then ran toward the monster under the dumbfounded view of his companion who had no other choices but to follow his instructions.

"Hey! Don't expect me to save you as I did with Ruby!"

That strange burning feeling inside his chest came back once again, adrenaline or not, he exactly knew the only solution to cool it off: beat the shit out of that Death-Stalker.

He was now facing the monster which didn't have any hesitation to launch its pinching claws at the blonde, at the same time, Kira's eyes began to glow as the dark fog of earlier began to emanate from his body and swiftly intercepted the Death Stalker's claws, completely immobilizing the monster.

"Oh my god! He _actually_ can wrestle big strong monsters with his bare hands!" Without him noticing it, Yoshikage just gained one point of affinity with Yang staring at his manly endeavor with her mesmerized iliac eyes.

The Death Stalker had it enough with this ridiculous being and decided to strike him with his orange stinger, the strange ghost hovering above Kira immediately retaliated by giving a strong punch sending the tail back to its owner, but that also meant that Kira had to let go on one of the claws who was going to cut him in half if he didn't have the reflex to jump from the ground.

Hopefully, Ren and Blake came to his rescue and hit the monster with their respective blades before retreating toward the group with the blond following them. Pyyrha began giving suppressive fires with **Milo** turned into a rifle at the Death Stalkers to help the trio reach the bridge, Ren and Blake kept running while Kira stopped next to the redhead and gave her a pat on the shoulder.

"Just don't bother with it, that thing takes bullets like a sponge…"

"Then what should we do?!" Asked an alarmed Pyrrha as she reverted the shape of Milo into a Xiphos while looking over the blond's shoulder at the scorpion Grimm slowly approaching them.

Yoshikage looked down for a moment reflecting for a plan until he pulled out his switchblade from the inside of his palm and gave it to the redhead, this time it was covered in a strange purple tint that made girl slightly confused.

"Take this and stab it on that bastard's tail, specifically on its stinger! Then all you had to do is to not get caught by **it**!"

"Uh, okay, but…"

"Shit! The Death Stalker catching up with us, come on let's go!"

Without leaving her a chance to utter a single word, he immediately grabbed her hand and began sprinting toward the group.

The crew started crossing the bridge, but soon enough, the Nevermore circled back and targeted them before proceeding to storm into the bridge and demolishing a part of it, unfortunately, some of them didn't have time to cross the bridge, while two got the unfortunate luck to be standing on it right when the monster attacked.

Yoshikage and Pyrrha both seemed to fall to their doom until the blond's dark purple emanated toward the redhead, then an arm suddenly materialized grabbing her by the neck before tossing her to the edge of the stone platform with a fulgurant force.

Unfortunately, while Pyrrha safely gained ground, she could only do but peek in horror at Yoshikage frowning at her in a stern manner, still not believing the sudden instinct to use his **power** to save her instead of him, but for some reason he wasn't regretting at all, he just felt stall and simply accepted his unavoidable fate.

His last actions were to empty his mind and close his eyelids, seeing all that he could remember of his life flashing before his eyes, it was a very fast slideshow. Afterward, a black blur swung toward him and caught him by the leg before taking to the nearest solid ground and throw him on it.

"Thanks…" Yoshikage sighed while looking at Blake's sheathing her chained pistols and giving him a small reserved smile on her face. "You're welcome… You seemed like you were reflecting on your past deeds down there."

"Yeah and I just realized they weren't that good…" Groaned the blond standing up before looking in dismay at the giant bird diving towards them, Yoshikage crouched down while Blake jumped above its head and rode the beast for a while before jumping towards where her three future teammates regrouped.

"That thing's strong as hell!" The black-haired girl complained while the Nevermore was coming back for round two.

"Then let's hit it with everything we got!" Shouted Yang with determination while charging her golden gauntlets with a set of new shotgun shells. The four girls all aimed their firepower toward the giant beast screeching in pain at the impact of the multicolored discharges on its wings, still, that didn't stop its course down their position.

"Crap! He's still flying toward us!" Cried out Weiss in terror before she jumped away from the giant black bird wrecking the small platform they were standing on; the girls then began swiftly hoping from falling rock to falling rock until they regained solid grounds.

In the meantime, Pyrrha and her future team were battling against the Death Stalker, despite fighting four different students at the same, the Grimm didn't have any difficulty scattering them all off with its strong jabs, Pyrrha was the last one getting attacked as she used her shield to protect herself from the scorpion's tail.

Crap! There has to be something they could do to defeat this thing!

Suddenly, an idea struck the redhead as she reached for the switchblade strapped on her belt, the purple tin of the blade shinning on her face as she remembered the previous instruction given by Yoshikage.

" _Stab it on the bastard's stinger, and don't get caught by_ _ **it**_ _!"_

Why did he mean by "it"? That's what she was going to find out, Pyrrha threw the knife at the Death Stalker's orange stinger, unfortunately, only the tip of the blade stuck to it and the monster didn't even feel it as it gave to both Nora and Jaune a swift sweep of its claws.

This is where Pyrrha threw **Akuo** toward the tail and pushed the knife deeper into the stinger, at this moment, the blade made a distinctive clicking noise as if it just triggered some kind of tripping mine.

' **clank'**

' **BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM'**

Nobody knew what a kind chemical reaction triggered within the Death Stalker's stinger, but whatever it is completely obliterated the Grimm in an earthshattering explosion pushing everyone in its vicinity to the ground. Pyrrha slowly lowered her shield as she looked at the result of the explosion with widened eyes, the entire upper body portion of the Death Stalker was completely charred and its tail simply inexistent, the bone armoring the Grimm's body completely came off revealing a cloud of dark particles bursting from it like black blood.

Despite the horrifying wound inflicted on it, the monster was still on its legs, shaken up by the attack while whimpering in pain until Nora came from the sky and crushed its naked head on the ground with **Magnhild** , finishing off the beast once and for all.

"Pyrrha…" Jaune caught the redhead's attention as he stood up from his previous fall, an expression mixed between confusion and astonishment marked on his face. "Wh-What was that?!"

"I-I don't know…" Pyrrha shook her head as she was as confused as the blond boy. "It was that knife that Yoshikage gave me, it clicked and then just blew up…"

"Damn, uh, could it be a makeshift grenade or something?" Pyrrha nodded at Jaune's suggestion since it looked the most plausible thing, or else it could be something regarding his… **Semblance**?

The two students were immediately interrupted by the distant cries of the Nevermore still flying around and assaulting Ruby and her regrouped with Weiss as the two girls watched with dreadful eyes at the Nevermore still lurking around their position, finally admitting to the idea that bullets were completely ineffective against the humongous flying Grimm.

"Crap! What do we do now?" Weiss' traits tensed as she sees Yang jumping at the monster's gaping mouth and emptying all the ammo of **Ember Celica** right on its face, but the Grimm simply ate the shotgun shells like sweets and threw the blonde away from its beak.

"Wait! I have a pl-"

"Actually, I think I have a better plan."

Out of nowhere, Yoshikage appeared behind the surprised Ruby and Weiss and interrupted the silver eyed girl's talk, the two preferred leaving the questions about how in the hell did he got up here for later and just focused on what he had to say.

"Nothing too difficult really, I just need you guys to send me in the air, that's all."

Similar to Pyrrha, both girls gave him a completely bewildered grimace while trying to analyze the boy's statement in their heads before both uttering a synchronized "What?" in a disbelieved tone.

"Just you guys do it." Blandly replied Yoshikage trying his best to reveal as little as possible of his _**explosive**_ plan. "I'll do the rest of it…"

The girls kept their dazed stare at the teenager for a second before plainly nodding and going toward the two other girls to inform them of Kira's strange stunt, Yang and Blake did the whole confused stare again but accepted as well since they were ready to do anything to turn that bird into a roasted turkey.

Under Kira's instructions, the group soon formed some kind of slingshot using Blake's chain warped around two stone pillars while Yang was keeping the Nevermore's attention far from the others, Ruby and Yoshikage began stretching the chain backward while Weiss used one of her magical glyphs to help the two stabilize the black rope and aim it in the right direction.

"Are you really sure about your plan?" Asked worriedly Ruby as she positioned herself next to the blond.

"Yeah! Are you really sure about that?!" Followed Weiss not believing she had to agree with Ruby about this, Kira just replied with a slight shrug and a far-too calm smile. "Maybe?"

"Wh-What do you mean maybe? We're endangering our lives here!" Weiss' voice began mimicking that weird crow scream again as her pale face started to fume in anger.

"Actually, I'm the only one who can get killed in this really…" The boy replied with no change in his attitude despite the situation he was in. "Just make sure you got the shot all right?"

The heiress preferred not to extend the discussion any further and just uttered a slight grumble while she was readying her glyph, Yoshikage gave a sign to Weiss to let go the chain which she immediately did as she dismisses her glyph and left the two blasts to space.

Yoshikage took a tight grip on Crescent Rose while its user was firing shots to propel them further in air until they reached the cliff and began ascending on it, Weiss used her glyphs once again to help them climb the wall until they reached a certain level where Ruby fired a shot on the cliff and sent the two straight to air with the Nevermore following their track.

Yoshikage grabbed the scythe's blade while Ruby started rotating on herself to give more boost to the blond's following leap in the air as he let go the scythe and left himself propel toward the sky until he could reach the clouds.

There was a microsecond where Kira's ascension died off and left him immobile in mid-air, he could see nearly the entirety of the Emerald Forest and even the high towers of Beacon Academy on his left. The view was simply incredible.

For a second, he wished he could have the ability to fly or levitate like that so he can experience such a relaxing moment without the need of a team of four girls and a giant slingshot. Or maybe he could try to practice more yoga, he heard that some people could levitate just by meditating.

Yoshikage finally realized this wasn't time to be submerged in such thoughts as he saw the Nevermore heading toward him and gravity finally overcoming, now it should be a perfect time for the second part of his plan…

…

Rolling up into a ball while the Nevermore was opening its beak and flying straight at him.

"No… don't tell me he's going…"

' **GULP'**

Under the horrified eyes of all the students on the ground, the Grimm swallowed the blond in one bite with no struggle coming from him, a sinister silence settled on the cliff as the Nevermore decided to hover for a moment as it was digesting its latest meal.

"Holy **FUCK**!" Yang couldn't prevent the profanities coming from her mouth as she was simply too appalled at what just unveiled in front of her very iliac eyes, a pure act of suicide nobody was waiting for not a single bit. Blake preferred expressing her shock by keeping a wide agape mouth not letting one single note come out of it.

"I first thought that he was braindead when he was talking about a plan, but not this much…" Whispered Weiss behind her hands covering her mouth with a dead frozen stare, expecting herself to be roaring in anger by the blond's incredibly stupid plan, but was instead genuinely, heartbroken.

"Yo-Yoshikage… **NO!** " A disheartened Ruby Rose cried out while shooting the rifle of Crescent Rose to launch herself toward the Nevermore, but the lack momentum only lifted her up a bit in the air before she miserably crashed on stone ground, she then looked up in the sky, tears forming under eyes as she grieved the horrible fate of a boy despite meeting him only for a couple of days.

On the other side of the crumbled bridge, Pyrrha was the most affected by Yoshikage's unpredictable move, her shocked eyes still not grasping the fact that he was devoured by the giant monster while her right hand instinctively covered her trembling mouth.

In the meantime, inside the Grimm's belly, there was a hand rummaging between the intestines trying its best to not get indigested. _"If this fuckhead thinks he can fucking eat me alive…"_ The hand then made somewhat of a thumbs up, before pressing its thumb on its index like it was activating a detonator with a familiar clicking sound resonating from it.

' **clank'**

' **BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM'**

Then suddenly out of nowhere, the bird literally **imploded in a gigantic explosion** covering its cries of pain in a thick orange colored blast, the fulgurant brightness of the explosion urged the bewildered students to cover their eyes or look away from it like an eclipse until it finally cleared off, leaving them the chance to examine what just happened.

The Nevermore who was hovering above their heads suddenly vanished in thin air, not a single thing was left of his presence but a cloud of thick smoke and its shrill screams still echoing in the air like the cries of a ghost. A strange silhouette plummeted out of the dark cloud who was soon revealed to be Yoshikage's body completely unharmed despite being eaten alive by the monster.

"Holy **FUCKING SHIT**!" Yang definitely couldn't prevent the profanities to come out of her wide agape mouth while Blake's grim stare quickly turned into a pure sense of shock, then in panic as they both see the blond boy freefalling with no way to absorb his impact. "Somebody should do something! Or he's going to die, for serious this time…"

"I-I simply don't understand how he survived this…" Blurted out Weiss looking at him in disbelief "But I need to keep him alive just enough so I can scold him for his lunatic act!" She then slowly summoned a glyph to where he will be in contact to the ground until she was interrupted by a screaming Nora proudly pushing her chest forward with a wide proud grin.

" _ **Don't fret innocent kind! SuperNora is here to the rescue!"**_ At her words, she slammed her hammer on the ground and fired a shot sending her into the air, where she grabbed the falling blonde by ramming her shoulder inside his bowels and warping her arms around his waist.

If there was a photo finish, you would clearly see a frame by frame shot of Yoshikage slowly feeling his ribs being shattered and his spine nearly dislocating due to the girl's violent shove. Nora then safely returned back to the ground, holding the blond like a bag of potatoes before dropping him on the ground.

Yoshikage moaned in pain while holding his belly just before he turned his face toward the sky where all his companions surrounded his field of view with different expressions on their heads.

" **You psychopath! Have you lost your mind or what?!"** Yelled out Weiss red in anger with her eyes nearly popping out of their eye sockets, she simply cannot forgive him for showing her the most daredevil stunt she ever laid eyes on. Still, she had to admit that his ' _plan_ ' worked some way or another and the Nevermore was killed in one single blow, so while he may be a reckless madman with a death wish, he's fortunately not a useless hotheaded braindead as she imagined.

"Yoshikage, are you okay?!" Ruby hurried toward the blond and stared down at him, her anxious eyes twitching all around his body to check if he was hurt until Yang patted her shoulder and calmed her, the blonde then looked down at the boy with a genuinely impressed grin.

"You may be a reckless psychopath with a death wish, but holy crap what you just did was super-duper-freaking awesome!"

Pyyrha reached down to him and helped him to stand up with a half-smile on her face as she didn't know how to fully react to the boy's deed. "I'll be honest I'm not a fan of your methods, but I appreciate the originality, I guess…"

Yoshikage gave to all the group a silent smile before seeing Jaune approaching him from behind with his trademark mumbling and a shy grin. "Ye-Yeah I don't think I'll be doing the same thing as you do any time sooner, but that was… very cool, what you did, hehe." Kira stared at the clumsy boy before nodding at his statement while calmly saying at him "Thanks, Jaune." Jaune simply pulled off a dumbfounded face not expecting him to even remember his name.

"Well, now that we killed all these monsters, maybe we should go back to the cliff and finish the exam…"

Everyone nodded at Yang's proposition and walked on the bridge in a synchronized pass toward the finish point.

* * *

" **Russel Thrush** , **Cardin Winchester** , **Dove Bronzewing** , **Sky Lark**. The four of you have retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as team **CRDL** , led by… Cardin Winchester."

Cardin, the broad-looking and newly designated leader of his team, brushed his light brown hair with a smug smile on his face, feeling somewhat of an honored sensation after Professor Ozpin declared him as the leader even though he was frankly expecting it, like seriously, the dude was half a foot taller than the rest of his team.

The four boys came down from the stage and their places were taken by the group of Jaune, Pyyrha, Ren, and Nora, who were soon called team **JNPR** and led by Jaune, the blond was so dazed by the news of him becoming a leader that he didn't properly react to Pyrrha's playful punch to the elbow and he clumsily fell on the ground causing the redhead to slightly giggle and all the audience to burst in laughter.

"And finally, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long…" Declared the white-haired headmaster while the four girls walked up to the stage "You four retrieved the white knight pieces, from this day forward you will work together as team **RWBY** , led by...Ruby Rose."

Similar to Jaune, Ruby was surprised by the news while Weiss completely froze on her place thinking she probably heard wrong for a moment, she then tried to convince the headmaster that there must be a mistake but the crowds' constant noises completely muffled her voice.

"I'm so proud of you!" Yang jumped on her sister and gave her a strong hug with an enthusiastic smile as wide as her cup size, not much can be said about Blake's emotion given by her usual stoic attitude, she just seemed content and that's all.

"Before we move on, ladies, can you stay here for a moment?" Indicated Professor Ozpin to the perplexed four girls before turning toward the crowd with a very stern stare. "Yoshikage Kira, can you please step up to the stage please?"

Soon enough, the whole amphitheater suddenly went quiet while the crowd formed a large circle around the blond whose heart was going to pop out when he heard his name, he swallowed his saliva and started walking through the mob of teenagers goggling at him while trying his best to not pass out from the anxiety he was feeling right now, which only made it even worse as the students kept staring at him, even more, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.

Hopefully, he found his way up to the stage without any accidents, the newly formed team RWBY stepped aside to let the boy face the professor, the two men looked at each other for a moment before the headmaster cleared his throat as he began stating the following speech. "You have proven to be a very rare case for this year as the only student with a team represented by only one member, a ' _one-man team'_ to be specific…"

Whispers began filling the room for a moment which didn't improve Kira's annoyed posture before they finally all stopped when Ozpin resumed talking. "Which is a shame as when I was monitoring the whole exam, you have proven to be quite a fantastic and skillful combatant against the monsters of Grimm despite your… _uncanny_ choice of weaponry. In fact, if you were in a proper team, I would've declared you a leader on the spot…"

Kira's tense eased a slight bit after the compliment, however, much to his displease, Ozpin soon picked a more threatening stare.

"Still, that doesn't mean I am not highly disappointed by your behavior young man, for the whole trial you didn't give a single effort to find yourself a teammate and just decided to stick up with team RWBY and JNPR, two teams who were already formed from the very beginning…"

Ozpin took a brief silence as he sighed and left his menacing tone fade away but still keeping his glare toward the blonde.

"But in the same time, it's not entirely your fault, this year's exam was quite rough as we noticed a slight decrease in student's success rate, which probably explains why not a single student beside you have picked up the black knight piece…" Ozpin's frown became more intense as he starred deep inside the boy's purple eyes with a bit of questioning. " _ **It's like fate decided to make you a lone wolf no matter what…**_ "

The headmaster's brown pupils slightly looked toward team RWBY standing next to them before switching back to Yoshikage.

"However, because of Beacon Academy's policy, I cannot let you go like that. This is why for the rest of your current student year; you will be assigned to team RWBY as an **auxiliary member** since you seemed to be quite cooperative with them back at Emerald Forest. But let me get this clear, while their grades will not be affected by your aptitude in their company, you, on the other hand, are obliged to cooperate with them and your performance will be meticulously graded depending on your coordination with the team. Be courteous and follow the orders of the group's leader like it was yours."

The headmaster's speech left Yoshikage with a weirded-out expression on his face, despite the initial revulsion to pair with somebody for the rest of his school years, he got to admit that this must be the best solution he could opt for, at least the team is not completely strange to him.

Ruby could be very dreamy from time to time but she's a very young kid and still proved enough to become a leader, Yang is lively and seem quite hotheaded at a first glance, but she's pretty smart and know how to tactically use her fists, Weiss can be very cold sometimes (as her appearance suggests) but she has proven many times that she wasn't the usual rich bratty kid and Blake… seems cool even though he cannot put a finger on her, still, he was happy to find a book mate in her.

Ozpin turned toward the crowd as Yoshikage and the girls came down from the stage, Yang rested her hand on his shoulder while expressing how happy she was to see him becoming a member of their team, Ruby and Blake agreed with the blonde while each depicting a very content smile, even Weiss seemed to have taken the news far more greatly than Ruby being her leader. In fact, she was satisfied to see one member of her supposed 'elite trio' being with her, even though he displayed a very unpredictable way of fighting that the heiress is not really a fan of.

The headmaster finally announced the conclusion of today's ceremony and wished good luck to the newly formed teams before leaving the stage.

* * *

"Come on Yoshikage! We just started the party!"

"Sorry, I'm tired and I still need to unpack my things. Good night, see you all tomorrow."

"Well okay, good night!"

"Sleep well!"

"Bye Yoshikage!"

The blond gave a slight wave to both team RWBY and JNPR who decided to celebrate their official admission inside team RWBY's dorm room and left them to continue their festivities, he wasn't a fan of parties anyway.

Conveniently enough, Yoshikage's room was directly next to his female teammates', the reason why he got a room of his own was probably because the dorms were designed to only host four people max, so Ozpin had to give him a special one.

Yoshikage slightly waved his Scroll in front of the room's magnetic lock making a slight ' **click** ' as it unlocked the door and left the boy open it, the door pivoted to the side and revealed the interior of the room where Yoshikage will live for probably the next four years of his life.

Proportionally speaking, the room was barely half the size of what he saw Ruby and the others had, it looked like Ozpin took one of the janitor's storage facilities and put a bed, a bookshelf and a wooden desk next to the small single window to make it look like a bedroom, heck he could even see traces of where the old storage units where placed.

But despite the room's ridiculous size and its bland decoration, there was still a few free spaces that left Yoshikage's expertise in interior decoration fully bloom. "I could put a couch here and a T.V set just in front of it…" He muttered while looking at the space in front of the bed. "I could also fill this bookshelf with some novels, I should speak to Blake so she can lend me some… and this small empty area inside the wall, I could put a stereo system where I could play music when I want to study or something like that…"

This room, it was his room, his own and private place to stay, he was alone in this room and he can do anything he pleases… _Anything_.

A smirk drew across the boy's face while sitting on the edge of the single window illuminating the room, looking at the sunset in the far horizon between the many buildings constituting the academy. He then recalled the events at Emerald Forest and looked down at the bandage he stealthily rolled around his wounded forearm during the exam, he's certain that somebody noticed that dark red smudge on it but couldn't ask him about it in the heat of the battle, doesn't matter now either since they've probably forgotten about it by now. Another thing that resurfaced in his mind was that burning sensation he was sensing in his chest from time to time, that supposed _heroic_ spirit, he finally concluded that it was just his brain who ordered him to give a good impression in front of his peers, why would he care about the well-being of any of these people around here? They can simply fend off for themselves...

…

Yes, as playfully expected from Yoshikage Kira.

His smile became much sharper and wider, at the same time, the purple color inside his eyes began glowing as his body started releasing a dark transparent fog covering his body once again, his features began to take a much sinister tone as the fog completely enveloped him and started sliding down on the pavement like a shadow and toward the small obscure corner next to the blonde.

"Yes, this place is good enough, it will suffice both of **us** …"

The iris inside his glowing eyes began stretching up to resemble those of a cat while he looked at the corner of his eyes, noticing the **dark silhouette** concealed in the corner of the room where the light of the sun couldn't attain.

"Am I right… **「** **Killer Queen** **」**?"

The dark silhouette didn't reply and just maintained staring at nothing with its two predatory eyes glowing in bright pink. Kira stopped giving attention to the strange being and resumed contemplating the many light posts decorating the fine exterior of the academy gradually lighting up as the warm orange light of the sun was replaced by the dull shining of the shattered moon.

The strange silhouette drifted its right forearm out of the shadow and exposed it to the light of the moon, its skin was as bright as the color of its cat-like eyes, its humanoid hand had no nails and was clothed in a black leathered glove with bands warped around the forearm, steel studs were pinned on the knuckles and the bands of the glove while its thumb was bandaged in a white strip.

However, the most notable thing about that forearm was **the round golden emblem** attached to the back of the glove, a grim-looking **skull with its jaw slightly agape and horns resembling cat ears on top of its head**.

* * *

Ozpin was calmly sitting on his desk with his signature coffee mug resting on his table, browsing the many footages he captured from this morning's exam by using his tablet Scroll.

For some reason, he was mostly focusing on Yoshikage's performances as he was looking at the video where the blond was shown intercepting the deathly attack of the Death Stalker, the headmaster kept moving back and forth between the moment where the monster initiated its attack and the moment where Kira grabbed the two giant claws with his bare hands, or what looked like his bare hands…

As he kept slowing down the video, he noticed something radiating from the boy's body, some kind of dark purplish fog barely sticking out from the blonde's silhouette, he then rewind the clip and started moving one frame at a time while greatly concentrating at the dark aura growing more and more as the claws of the Death Stalker approached the mysterious young man.

Suddenly, the doors of his office opened as Ms. Goodwitch entered the room holding a folder between her hands and a displeased expression on her face, she stopped right in front of Ozpin's desk and rested the folder on the table while still keeping a disheartened look.

"As you asked sir, I've made my researches on the boy named 'Yoshikage Kira', I have done my best to track every bit of information regarding him…"

"And what did you find my dear?" Asked the headmaster while reaching to the folder and opening it, the lack of papers inside of it gave the old man a tad of worry.

"Nothing, his background files are completely empty, I typed his name on all the databases of the four kingdoms and they gave me no results, no parents, no relatives, no date of birth, no address…" Confessed the blond teacher with a worried sigh.

"I see…" Ozpin whispered while glancing at the content of the folder, looking at the files containing only the boy's name and some photos of himself at different ages, no prior than his early teenage years. However, the biggest thing that brought the headmaster's attention was that the oldest files about the boy only dated back to four years ago, which made the man speculate that Yoshikage's current identity might be false. "Maybe he has a different name? A different identity?"

"This is what I thought…" Replied Ms. Goodwitch "I've used the urine and blood samples he provided in his medical exam, nothing either…" She sighed once again while looking down discouraged by her failed endeavors before commenting with a low voice. _**"It's like this kid is a complete ghost…"**_

Ozpin retained the woman's comment and put the folder back to the table, he then grabbed his tablet once again and looked at the screen, the Scroll was now showing a still image of Kira blocking the Death Stalker's attack, however, with further inspection, it wasn't his hands that caught the Grimm's claws, in fact, his hands were not even near the Death Stalker as his back was facing the monster.

His dark aura was gathered on top of his back and formed some kind of **humanoid bust** grabbing the Death Stalker's claws with its strong arms, not much could be described about Yoshikage's ' _guardian angel_ ' but a pink silhouette barely discernable from the dark-clouded aura he was clothed in, however, one thing that could be noticeable were the two glowing pink dots representing its eyes and the two cat-like pointy ears on top of its head.

Ozpin took another quick sip of his coffee mug and put it again on the table while looking at the strange ghost then back at Yoshikage, by the small devious smirk drawn on his face, it doesn't seem like something out of the ordinary for him.

His medical report clearly stated that the young man had no Aura and no Semblance, still, Ozpin accepted his admission to the academy, seeing that his combat skills were good enough and expecting him to unlock his hidden powers the same way the young Jaune Arc did at the Emerald Forest, but he never thought that the boy would already process a power, a power widely different than anything he ever saw.

Could it be **magic**? Can he be part of the _**four**_ …? No, no way…

" _ **Well, what strange things are you hiding from us? Yoshikage Kira?"**_


	4. RWBY-Y

_*Darkness… Unknown Location…*_

Nothingness, that was the only word that could describe the location he was currently in, he was just a single entity in the middle of a pitch-black environment, the only two things he could sense was the solid ground under his feet and the heat coming from his mouth due to his nervous breathing.

" _Whe-Where am I?_ " He whispered rubbing his forehead before flicking a small blond strand of hair from his view, a weird feeling kept bugging him around his neck like it wasn't the first time he came to this place but just can't remember a thing about it, **a déjà-vue**.

He looked down at himself and saw with perplexity at the seemingly very expensive suit he was dressed in, he slightly opened his light blue jacket and saw the name ' _ **Valentino**_ ' stitched on it, just pronouncing the name gave a taste of refinement in the mouth, however, he never heard of such company existing in Remnant.

His eyes then shifted down to the tie hanging from his collar and crossing between his light emerald shirt, there was a row made of Killer Queen's skulls vertically stitched to it in a dark purple background with dark yellow lines crossing the tie.

This wasn't his familiar choice of clothing, especially for the tie…

However, this would soon be the least of his concerns as he looked down in horror at his right hand, or to be more precise, **at the stump where his hand used to be.**

" _My-My hand!"_ He shouted in horror as he held his mutilated forearm with his other remaining hand, his shock suddenly turned into confusion when he realized that he wasn't bleeding, neither he saw any flesh or bones sticking out of his torn hand, the only thing he could see was a white material resembling some kind of stone constituting the stump.

" _What the hell does this mean?! What kind of place is this?!_ "

Suddenly, goosebumps began to appear behind his neck, an unsettling feeling of something appearing out of nowhere… something lurking around his position… and slowly approaching him from behind…

His head rotated to his left in the most dramatic and suspenseful way ever, only to be glancing at not one, but thousands of hands coming out of the dark in one coordinated pace, violently grabbing him from every single square meter of his body.

" _Wha-What the hell is this?!_ "

He tried his best to hold to the ground using his feet but all his efforts were hopeless as he was suddenly lifted from the ground by the greyish rotten hands and slowly drawn back to where they came from. He kept cursing and twitching around to free himself from their grip, but nobody replied to his screams besides the echoes of his voice, until once again, **another entity appeared to spectate this terrible event**.

…

" **Now, let's have you punished Kira Yoshikage…"**

He looked down in pure bafflement at the rose-haired **girl** facing her back at him with an expression as cold as a Victorian statue, she shouldn't be above the age of sixteen with her light pink hair reaching down her ears and her eyes as cutely colored as her hair, without mentioning her adorable short pink robe and the Alice band keeping her straight hair back, and still, her expression was harsh, malicious even.

But all of her cute appearances was suddenly eclipsed by the indescribably horrible knife wounds on her back, there's no way she could inflict herself these kinds of wounds, what kind of vile monster have the rage and brutality to do these to her?!

He wanted to beg her help, tell her to save him from these horrifying hands pulling him from all sides, but none of these words came out of his mouth as they were replaced by others he didn't even realize he uttered them in the first place.

" _Tch!_ Killer Queen, blow these things up!"

* _ **bwaaaaaaaarp***_

Killer Queen appeared beside him and tried to trigger his first bomb, but before he could even activate the charge, he was also grabbed by the hands and immediately immobilized him. Their attempt was swiftly punished, the hands kept pulling their preys out to the point where they literally shattered them in pieces.

Surprisingly enough, neither he nor Killer Queen was feeling any kind of pain, he just felt a slight discomfort when he got split up in pieces and that's it, and like his cut right hand, none of his torn body parts were bleeding which only made him more confused rather than terrorized.

Once again, his mouth began to speak without him giving any demands to do it, it was like he had no control of his body. "Whe-Where are they taking me?!" The girl huffed in an unconcerned manner, almost mocking him. "Who knows? But… **I'm sure it's a place you will never find peace in it.** "

The flock of hands violently started pulling him in fulgurant velocity toward a purplish black hole, only to be immediately disintegrated with no trace of him left beside the echoes of his gruesome screams.

And then he woke up.

" **Ga-Gah!** " Yoshikage suddenly jumped out of his bed all shaky and sweating like a waterfall, before slowly calming down as he realized it was all a nightmare, he rubbed his palm on one side of his face while stabilizing his breathing and heartbeat.

It wasn't the first time the blond got this nightmare, nearly every fifth of the month he gets the very same horrifying dream, those rotten filthy hands dragging him to a location incomprehensible to him. However, something different occurred from the previous incarnations, **that girl showed up** , he never saw that girl before, who was she and how does she know his name?

Kira stayed a couple of minutes sitting on his bed thinking about the subject before dismissing it, he simply cannot let himself worry about a dumb dream right now, because, for the first time in his life, he had school to go.

He stepped out of his bedsheets and then glanced at his alarm clock displaying: _***7:45 AM***_.

If he recalled correctly, classes begin at nine so he got quite a large time to go to the bathroom while everybody is supposed to be asleep and pick up something to eat at the dining hall too.

* * *

That's strange, it's 8:52 and he found no sign of team RWBY nor team JNPR since he woke up, when he passed next to their rooms, he heard a lot ruckus coming from them like they were rebuilding their dorms from the ground up, who knows what they were doing… and thank god, he wasn't sharing his room with them if they were going to do this kind of racket every morning.

At this moment, Yoshikage was attending this morning's class supervised by **Mr. Port** , a slightly older man than Ozpin with a massive grey mustache and even more massive stomach covered by a red burgundy suit with yellow outlines and interlines.

The class didn't even start and he was already rambling about his allegedly "thrilling" adventures as a young Huntsman, the blond slightly glanced toward the other students around and simply related to their bored expressions and constant yawning.

What an anticlimactic following of yesterday's colorful exam…

" _Grr… Goddamn tie…_ " He grumbled while loosening the node of his suffocating red tie for the third time, he never was very familiar with uniforms and other formal attires, and this black suit was a little bit too stiff and tight for his figure like for real, he can't even move right in these tight clothes! Did they even got his sizes right?!

And the blue vest underneath it only made it worse as it kept scratching his chest despite being a white shirt between the cloth and his skin. Seriously, how can such a prestigious establishment have such an annoying dress code? Thank god, they aren't forcing them to always wear these during battle…

" _This is getting ridiculous, where the hell is Ruby and the others?_ " His wondering was immediately answered when the door of the class suddenly opened with the boy's acolytes busting inside with a clear sense of exhaustion in their faces.

"So-Sorry, we're… _late_ …" Gasped out Weiss while trying to regain her breath after the awful sprint her and the others had to make across the campus.

"No worry my dear! We just got started! Please, all of you take a seat! When was I? Oh yes! So, I had no more my battleax in hand and was _**literally**_ face-to-face with the giant Ursa… So, I dodged one of his attacks and tried to slam him on the ground with my bare hands-oh! Did I mention that the Ursa was four-time bigger than the regular one? So, I grabbed one of his arms, then…"

"Hi, Yoshikage!" Cheerfully waved Ruby to the blond as she walked toward the row of chairs where he was sitting followed by the rest of team RWBY, Yoshikage didn't reply with a wave but rather with a very stern frown followed by his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Where have you guys been?"

Ruby's waving hand melted down and hid behind her frightened posture thanks to the blond's **deathly** glare, letting Weiss taking the mantle to answer the boy's question. "I and the girls had to make some decorations in our room, but don't blame me! They're the one who thought it would be a great idea to build some bunk beds!"

Yoshikage wasn't satisfied one bit by their excuse but preferred to not argue any further, he simply doesn't have the single care about what kind of "decoration" they had to make, and so the discussion finally finished, leaving professor Port the only person to ramble about his probably fictitious exploits, until Jaune's whispering voice attracted the girl's look while Yoshikage preferred solely giving the boy an ear.

" _Psst-_ Hey guys! _I and the rest of the team were thinking about visiting the city this weekend, you guys' down?_ "

" _Yeah, sure! That'll be awesome!"_ Whispered Ruby with a gleeful smile, she then turned her gaze to Yoshikage who seemed to completely ignore the discussion. "Hey, you're coming too right?"

The blond boy suddenly twitched for a second before replying with a mumbling voice. "Umm, I've got things to do…"

"Oh, come on man!" Groaned Yang, warping her left arm around the blond's neck and resting her head on his shoulder. "You can't deny going out with your friends like that?!"

 _Who said you were my friends?_

Normally, the feeling of the blonde's generous assets pushing on somebody's shoulders would melt any boy nearly instantly, but Yoshikage's lack of tolerance to any contact only made him annoyingly glare at her, but she couldn't see it thanks to her golden locks covering most of his face.

"Hey, since you live here, you can be our tour guide and show us the city!" Pyrrha leaned forward, the rest of the group all agreed which only made Yoshikage's grimace even more upset. The only places he can show them are gang hideouts and illegal dust labs, and maybe even the abandoned flat of a recently deceased junkie if they acted good.

"You coming too?" The blond peered toward Blake and asked her.

"Um, yes." Replied the amber-eyed girl with a meek smile behind her book. "I guess it could be a good opportunity to get that book from that store you told me about…"

"Yeah…" Sighed Yoshikage rubbing the bridge of his nose for a moment before reluctantly accepting their proposal, if even Blake was going with them, why not?

Now that he thinks about it, he does have some shopping to do downtown…

* * *

"Ugh! How long are you going to keep acting like a child!"

"Weiss, wait!" Called out Ruby as she followed Weiss exiting the professor's class after an infuriating argument with her leader, the silver-eyed girl tried to reach for the heiress' arm only to be suddenly shoved back by her elbow.

"Can't you just drop the infantries and act as a true leader for once?!" The heiress burst out with a spiteful glare; Ruby stood frozen for a second completely confused by the girl's hurtful words before mumbling a half-assed reply. "Wha-What do you mean?!"

"Since the first day I saw you, you've been nothing but irritation and annoyance! And the exam only solidified the fact of how much of a reckless little brat you are!"

Such hurtful words pierced poor Ruby's heart like a spear, the silver-eyed girl's lips simply trembled while they tried looking for any words to utter. " _Bu-But Weiss… what about how we worked together back at the forest? All the talk about being a team?"_

"Not led by you." Ouch! What a way to rub more salt into the wound. "I've done nothing but train and study for months to be in this school. Only to be led by an incompetent little kid that barely came out of kindergarten, how's that fair?!"

" _Weiss, I-_ "

"I simply don't understand why Ozpin made you leader of the group, I could name you so many people that deserve more to be a leader than you and besides me, like Yoshikage for example, him and Pyrrha are probably the most competent person I've seen in this school, how the hell they didn't get to be leaders, while you and that goof of Jaune got it quite easily?!"

The girl simply turned heels with her white ponytail despicably slapping Ruby's cheek and walked away.

" **Ozpin made a mistake.** "

Ruby could feel the tears rolling around her silver eyes after the hurtful accusations of her supposed teammate, only the appearance of her big sister could comfort her. "Come on Rubes don't listen to her, she doesn't know what she's talking about…" Yang then turned toward the heiress walking away with her lilac eyes slightly fading into a bright red. "Ugh, if I get a hold of that little bi-"

"Easy now." Interrupted Blake before looking at Ruby with an apologized stare. "She didn't mean any of that, she probably just got too focused by the battle."

"Yeah don't worry…" Followed Jaune putting a hand on the girl's shoulder and trying his best to give her the most uplifting smile he could make. "You know how people get too tensed during a fight…"

"Yeah, I guess you guys are right…" The girl's spirit finally lifted as she wiped her tears and grew a small joyful smile on her pale face. "Y'know that she called you a goof, right?" Jaune's eyes suddenly stretched out in shock before the clumsy blond began sheepishly chuckling, hopefully, she was just joking, hopefully.

Yoshikage was the last student to exit the class and silently join the rest of the group with his usually unconcerned gaze, Ruby looked at the blond approaching them which made him recall the words that Weiss said earlier.

" _I simply don't understand why Ozpin made you leader of the group, I could name you so many people that deserve more to be a leader than you and besides me, like Yoshikage for example, he and Pyrrha are probably the most competent person I've seen in this school, how the hell they didn't get to be leaders?!"_

A few moments passed before the group finally headed to the dining hall for lunch, this time, Yoshikage had nowhere to escape since Ruby and Yang grabbed him from both arms and forced him to sit down with them and the others.

"So, how do you guys handle with five members in your team?" Asked Pyrrha after slightly giggling at the weird threatening look Yoshikage gave to the sisters in each side of his shoulders. "How are you guys calling yourselves now? Team RWBYY?"

"Well, actually, it's more like **RWBY-Y** " Briefly corrected Ruby with a small smile across her pale face before she licked the jam from the knife, she just used to spread her bread, which triggered Yoshikage to eye her with a perplexed frown. "What's with the dash?"

"Oh y' know…" Followed Yang on the other side of his shoulder depicting the same smug-ish expression as her sister. "As Professor Ozpin said, you're just an 'auxiliary' member in our team. You just stick with us from time to time, and sometimes if you need our help we'll be here, and if we need yours, well don't think too much about it. Consider yourself like a sidekick!"

"A sidekick? What are you trying to say here?" A very menacing tone was felt coming from Kira's mouth and toward the female blonde nervously chuckling and waving her hands in front of her while she and Ruby tried to explain themselves without sounding that insulting, even Blake joined them with a book hiding her features from the boy's killing intents.

"Oh y'kown, you're like the… side dish."

"The drummer…"

"The third wheel…"

"The backup boyfriend…"

"The green Power Ranger…"

"The morning after pil-"

"Alright! Alright! I got what you guys are trying to explain! Sheesh" Sighed the blond while taking a sip from his coffee, if he was this much of a liability he can just quit! Yang and Ruby gleefully tried to explain to him that it was all a joke and that they genuinely appreciate his company, but that still didn't wipe that irritating glare off his face.

In the meantime, all members of team JNPR gave an amused look at the scene unraveling in front of them, it's like seeing two rookies trying to tame an angry lion until the loud voice of a large male interrupted them.

" **Hey, you guys! Seems like y'all having fun here! You don't mind if some friendly fellas join the discussion, huh?"**

Four boys menacingly surrounded the group's lunch table ruining both their cheerful ambiance and appetite, the most prominent one of the bunch was a large boy with a pretentious smirk on his face, appearing right behind Jaune who just gulped in fear after recognizing who it was.

"He-Hey Cardin! How's goin-"

"Pretty good Jauney Boy!" Mockingly replied the tall boy while shoving the palm of his hand on Jaune's head and forcefully messing his hair like he was some kind of toddler. "I was just wondering when you little piss haired fuck was planning on introducing your little group here to us!"

Cardin's vulgar words were met by most of the group's revolted glare, especially for Yang fuming for calling the blond boy "piss haired", Jaune, on the other hand, seemed rather amused as he took it as a playful joke. "Well that's my team JNPR and this is team RWBY…"

"Yo! How the fuck did Ozpin choose you to be a leader?! You're probably the wimpiest piece of shit in this entire academy!" Sneered the guy in the green mohawk while hopelessly trying to flirt with a very, **very** irritated Blake, he tried to playfully poke her black bow only for his hand to be rewarded with a swift slap of the girl. "Jeez calm down girl! I was just playing with you?"

"How about you go play with yourself!" Harshly remarked the amber-eyed girl wondering if she needed to spill her tea on him so he can buzz off.

"Easy now Russel!" Tamed down the leader of his team before switching his superior gaze toward the strange quiet boy sitting with team RWBY, finishing his breakfast in a rather unconcerned manner about the events happening around him, like he feels too superior to cater to the likes of Cardin and his band, which made the tall bully profoundly insulted.

"Hey, you! Aren't you the one who looked like he was going to crap his pants when Ozpin called him on stage?"

The blond nearly choked on his coffee at his mention, all his hopes of ending his breakfast unbothered going down the gutter, the four bullies all turned their mischievous chuckles at the poor boy. "Yeah, I fucking remember that! How much of a social outcast you have to be to end the test with **no** teammate to partner with?!" Followed Russel approaching Yoshikage.

The young blond's eyes started to glow in a deep purple as his right hand slowly reached to the butter knife next to him, only to be obstructed by both Yang and Nora standing in front of Russel. "Hey! How about you guys stay away from our friend here?!" Threatened the blonde with a defensive stance and a mean frown.

"Yeah! Take a hike or we'll break your legs!" Jumped the orange-haired girl clenching both her fists in front of her, the two girls' menaces were taken very lightly by the group but fortunately seemed to scatter them off.

"Yeah, whatever! Come on guys let's get the hell out of here… see you all at this afternoons' battle practice!"

"Yeah get the heck out of her you moro-" Ren's hand swiftly covered Nora's mouth before she could attract their attention and brought her down to her seat, in the meantime, Pyrrha turned toward Jaune and gave him a very worried look.

"Where did you know these guys? They're bad news!"

"Ah don't say that!" Mumbled the blond boy with a naïve smirk. "They're just joking around, rough humor that's all!"

"I'm not calling that humor!" Argued Yang with a stern glare uncanny for her cheerful traits before switching her gaze to Yoshikage and resting a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, don't let yourself pushed around by these guys! We'll be here for you!"

Yoshikage replied to Yang's consolations with no change of emotions. "Thanks, but it's alright, I can take care of myself…" He rested the knife in his hand, glad that he didn't have to shove it on someone's throat, but how long will it last before these four thugs strike again? Yoshikage bit his lower lips, concluding that even in a place like this he will have to make some enemies in the long run. If this goes into too extreme lengths, then he will have no other choice but to **dispose of them**.

* * *

Weiss finally reappeared at the sparring practice, but she didn't give a slight glance at her classmate and neither less at Ruby who just looked at the white-haired girl with worry and sadness amassed in her chest, the heiress simply sat in a corner of the arena and focused on Ms. Goodwitch explaining the premise of the dueling practice.

"Each opponent has a 'health bar' connected to their Aura, if one student's bar reaches red, the student must be declared loser. All techniques are permitted besides those that could endanger the student himself or any of the crowd, and I need to warn you once again that you have to be very aware of your surroundings, we cannot afford to rebuild the amphitheater each time somebody let himself go, especially you Miss Valkyrie."

And so, the duels started, most of them were low to barely average in Yoshikage's opinion, the only few people who caught his interest was Pyrrha and probably Yang, even Ruby proved to master her Crescent Rose like second nature, she did say that she built it by himself though.

To be honest, he was quite surprised to see this high level of fighting for first graders, but after spectating Jaune's pitiful fight, his high hopes immediately crumbled to near zero.

"Alright…" Spoke the blonde teacher as she looked down at her Scroll tablet to see the next contenders. "Russel Thrush from team CRDL and… **Yoshikage Kira** from team… or to be more precise, in partnership with team RWBY…"

Yoshikage suddenly woke up from his daze at the mention of his name, he looked at the teacher to make sure he was the one who was called before Yang punched him to the elbow and cheered. "Come on, don't be afraid! You can do it!"

Yoshikage replied to her with an annoyed frown while rubbing his elbow before finally standing up and heading to the fighting area under the cheers of his classmates more eager to see him in action than the boy himself.

"Come on Yoshikage!"

"Show him what you've got!"

"Break his legs!"

"You got quite the cult following here pal, surprising for a social freak like you." Commented Russel while juggling with his daggers and looking at his opponent with a vicious smirk on his lips, the blond didn't reply to the thug's taunts besides a cold glare while wearing his leather gloves.

"Hey teach!" Interpellated the mohawk boy pointing a finger at Yoshikage. "Fancy pants over there doesn't have any weapons with him, what's the deal?"

"I forgot to mention that Mr. Kira decided to fight unarmed for this training session…" Simply replied the teacher while lifting her glasses. "Unconventional way for a Huntsman to fight, but if he thinks he has the ability to do so, then all rights to him." Her surprising response was met with several small whispers from the surprised audience.

" _Is he seriously going to fight without any weapons?"_

" _I heard that he used a knife at the initiation exam, but this is just ridiculous!"_

"Oh okay…" The thug hid a small chuckle between his daggers before openly mocking the blond's fighting strategy. "I don't care if you want to play Kungfu Shaolin now, but don't expect me to hold back my blades from gutting you like a filthy pig!"

"Ah yes, about that Mr. Thrush, Mr. Kira doesn't have-"

"I'm not expecting it…" Bluntly replied the blond boy while cracking his knuckle in the most sinister way, similar to how a street gangster cracks his knuckles to beat some poor guy into a bloody pulp. "The only thing I'm using is those gloves so that putrid blood of yours doesn't stain my hands…"

"Yeah, Yoshikage! Don't let him scare ya like that!" Eagerly cheered Ruby with no response from the blond but instead from the mohawk boy popping a vein in irritation. "Yeah, let's see where that pretentious glare will be when I turn that pretty face of yours into a spiderweb!"

The teacher was initially hesitant to start the battle but finally did so, at the ring bell, Russel immediately stood forward and sprinted at the blond, daggers raised on a level to stab him right in the waist and pan him the ground like what a Beowulf would do.

Yoshikage just simply looked at him approaching for a precise distance before launching in a fraction of a second a violent front kick directed to his opponent's right knee, his leg suddenly straightening up and stopping him dead in his track.

"Whateuh?" Before the boy could even react, Yoshikage swiftly gave him a sharp slap to the side of his neck, urging him to stagger back due to the immense pain erupting from it. "Agh! **Fuck**!"

"Mr. Thrush, I urge you to refrain using any profanities during the battle." Sternly scolded the teacher while looking quite unfazed at the event that just happened in front of her, unlike the audience who gasped in astonishment at Kira's surprise attack.

"A front kick to the knee to stop him right in his track, followed by a fulgurant hit to the neck so he can destabilize him…" Explained Yang with an intensely impressed smirk on her lips, as an expert in hand to hand combats, the girl simply cannot praise the blond enough for his incredible technique.

"Still, that hit to the knee could be very dangerous since it could easily shatter somebody's leg if he doesn't have an Aura…" Commented Pyrrha wincing in worry, Jaune looked at her a tad confused by her concern and added. "Pyrrha, we shoot each other with guns, and still, Yoshikage doesn't seem like to do much damage to the guy…"

The group looked at the display monitor on top of the arena, showing that Russel's health bar barely receded by a few pixels despite the apparent pain he was feeling, then how the hell can he hurt him like that?

"Acupuncture." Blake's composed voice made all her friend's eyes look at her, her attentive gaze at Yoshikage's movements. "He's hitting weak points he knows would hurt his opponent, just a small touch is enough, even if you have an Aura."

"Yeah, you're right…" Followed Yang slightly surprised by Blake's sudden knowledge of such information even the blonde girl herself only has a few basic bits of knowledge in that. However, there was one thing that the black-haired girl grimly noticed and had gone over Yang and the other's head.

That hit to the neck, she learned it when she used to be with **him** , with enough force it can block your opponent's windpipes and choke him to death even if he had an Aura, it's like a kill switch on the human's body, something that only **somebody ready to take lives** should know.

Blake's eyebrows unsympathetically frowned, Yoshikage is clearly pulling his punches, that's obvious, why would he kill the guy? But where the hell did he learned that horrifyingly lethal move?

Lethal moves or not, Ruby cannot help herself but praise her friend's endeavor as her eyes sparkled in amazement. "Good job! Yoshikage!"

Kira's left eyebrow twitched for a moment but quickly came back to its original state, while he had to admit that the silver-eyed girl's screams started to irk him, he cannot allow himself to be distracted by it. Russel finally recovered from the hit and turned at the blond boy with intense rage in his eyes. "Bastard! You're done!" He then flicked his right dagger forward trying to slash open the boy's torso.

"Yoshikage watch out! He's reaching to your torso! Try to block him with your hand or something!"

Ignoring Ruby's useless advice, Yoshikage didn't find any difficulties in giving a right hook to the inside of his elbow bending it and completely nullifying his attack just before following up with a one-inch punch delivered to his left shoulder.

" **GYAH! FUCKER!** "

"Mr. Trush!" Shouted the teacher frowning at the student's lack of manner but you can't blame him, an electrifying pain traveled all around his body while he held his numb shoulder, it felt like somebody jammed in him a taser or something.

Ruby didn't fully understand what Yoshikage just did, but she still clapped his wonderful attack. "Yaaay, that's right!" This time, her cheers were rewarded by the quick glare of the blond, begging her to stop. "Ruby, please."

Despite the seemingly ferocious hit, Russel's health bar barely moved since his Aura was protecting him from most of the physical damages, which garnered him the rants of his teammates. "Hey, Russ'! Stop being such a cry baby! He's barely doing you any damage!"

"Yeah well, how about you fucking fight him next time?! He fucking hurts like hell!"

"Mr. Trush. This is you're last warning, if you cannot keep your manners, I will have to speak to you after class."

Russel looked with worry at Miss Goodwitch severe glare but decided to ignore her, the rage building up inside of him made his teeth clench so hard that they were going to break. "Fun time's over! Let's see how you'll deal with this!" He tapped the handles of his daggers at each other, and in a haze of sparks, pulled out a long metal chain connecting the two blades suddenly materializing into two blunt objects, turning the weapon into a pair of meteor hammers.

Yoshikage's traits tensed at the dual chained metal clubs twirling around the viciously smirking boy, Russel slowly approached Kira knowing that he cannot approach him without getting himself hit, a proper counter to his hand-to-hand combat that Yang grimly had to acknowledge of.

"Unless he's hiding some ranged weapons in his sleeves, I don't see him fighting that thing in close combat without taking a few hits… I mean, that's why I've got a pair of shotguns attached to my gauntlets."

"Then what can he do?!" Cried out Ruby with deep worry, Yang raising her shoulders didn't help to calm her, however, there was one person who didn't seem to be anxious about the situation.

"Don't worry, Yoshikage will definitely find a way…" Pyrrha complimented with a confident smile targeted at Yoshikage's stable posture, Jaune looked at her then asked her how did she know that the redhead simply raised her shoulders with a gentle smile and confessed that it was her instinct.

And her instinct seemed to be right as the blond boy didn't seem to look nervous anymore and finally decided that it was the right time to summon the dark purple glow around his body, as long as he keeps Killer Queen's movement swift and subtle, they wouldn't see a goddamn thing.

Russel whipped one of his chained clubs toward Yoshikage's face which he merely dodges by flicking his head to the side and instantly grabbing the chain with his right hand, before taking a step forward and using Killer Queen's left arm to grab the other part of the chains launched toward him, which gave the blond the opportunity to strike a punch with his left knuckles straight at the front of Russel's jaw instantly shaking him up.

" **YES! GOOD JOB YOSHIKAGE!** " Ruby jumped out of her seat in praise at Yoshikage's masterful parry while Yang's mouth seemed like it unhinged from its place, completely bewildered by how he pulled this one off, Pyrrha on the other hand simply settled with a relieved smile, proud to know that her instinct was correct.

Yoshikage quickly dismissed his Stand's arm before anyone would notice it and grabbed the chains with his real left arm, and while Russel was still stunned by the hit to his jaw, the blond swiftly warped his torso around the chains for a proper handling of the weapon before disarming the bully from his remaining club with a front kick of Killer Queen's leg.

Now fully owning the dual chained meteor hammers.

Ruby simply gloated in joy after seeing what the blond boy just did, the rest of the audience was feeling the same excited emotion, especially Yang who just cannot wait what Kira will do next. "This just keeps getting better and better!"

" **You idiot!** " Roared Cardin looking furious at his miserable teammate. "How can you let him take your weapon like that?!"

The complains coming from his teammates made the mohawk boy pissed beyond boundaries. "Who do you think you are taking my weapon! **I'LL SHOW YOU!** "

Russel rushed toward Yoshikage with a blind rage to regain his weapon, then quickly crouched back as he sees one of the meteor hammers flinging towards him, his predicable dodge swiftly earned him an uppercut from the other metal club sending him to fly backward.

"Using your opponent's weapon against them, incredible performance Mr. Kira." Praised the blond teacher feeling genuinely impressed by Yoshikage's intelligent move, even more, when she saw how skillful he was with such weapon. While she did see some glimpses of his fighting style during the Dust store robbery, looking at the blond's performances first-hand made even a composed person like herself truly baffled.

Let's just hope that he doesn't notice her Scroll tablet stealthily filming him, now that he summoned that strange aura around him, she cannot let this fight end without showing it to Professor Ozpin.

Under the claps of an eager audience and a more excited Ruby Rose, Russel felt truly demoralized but his anger only increased, he slowly stood up and wiped the smudge on his lower lip before immediately resuming his assault, now being more careful as he prudently began dodging Kira's attacks.

The two young men were now in a vicious duel where any mistake could be fatal to the other, maybe even ending the match altogether, they each needed an incredible amount of concentration, something that our poor protagonist couldn't afford due to Ruby's constant yelping.

" **YOSHIKAGE! AIM FOR HIS LEG! NO WAIT! LOOK OUT! HE'S GOING TO PUNCH ON YOUR LEFT! NO! YOUR RIGHT! OH NO! I-"**

" _Shut the_ _ **fuck**_ _up! Damn!_ " Yoshikage genuinely wanted to scream these words from the top of his lungs, but he had to constrain himself in giving a piercing glare to the girl, her frightened face turning even paler as if she stared at a Beowulf.

Unfortunately, that mere second of distraction proved to be disastrous for the boy as Russel instantly took the opportunity to stomp on the chain and launch a surprise headbutt straight at Yoshikage's nose, leaving a spurt of blood leaking from the blond's face as he suddenly backed up.

"Ah crap! What just happened?!" Cried out Ruby in panic, only for a female voice coming from the back of the amphitheater to reply. "That's what happens when you keep blabbering like a child!" The silver-eyed girl knew that it was Weiss' irritated voice, but she simply couldn't find where it came from.

Weiss looked with worry at Yoshikage covering his bloodied nose, she was even more distressed when she saw his health bar losing half of its length and turning into yellow, normally a hit like that shouldn't be this affecting but maybe his Aura isn't that much evolved so he had to compensate with his incredible skill set.

The heiress doesn't know why but she was genuinely appalled by her teammate's situation, she covered her mouth with her hands and started silently praying for his wellness.

In the meantime, the mohawk boy took the opportunity to quickly grab both ends of the chains and tightened them around Yoshikage's chest, just before his Aura began glowing in an orange color while a tick smoke began flowing in between his reddening fingers.

Yoshikage's nose was still bleeding but that didn't keep him from looking down at the chains around his body starting to take a volcanic orange before an intense feeling of heat began emitting from them, then suddenly, an agonizing yelp burst out from his mouth as the red-hot iron began burning the boy's skin.

Delighted by the cries of pain coming from Kira, the mohawk boy burst into a bloodlust laugh. "How do you like my Semblance's power **Heat**? I can generate any kind of temperature using my hands, I'll **fucking** cook you alive!"

"No way… this is bad, **very** bad." Exclaimed Pyrrha biting her left fist at the sight of the blond's health bar slowly decreasing. "If he doesn't get out of these chains, his Aura will drain up he'll lose the battle!"

No, something even worse will happen, there was no Aura to protect him from the hot chains slowly scorching the fabric of his clothes and starting to get in contact with his flesh, and still, despite his horrid situation, despite all the pain he was clearly suffering, the chains tightening around his chest ready to squeeze him to death if the heat doesn't kill him.

He still had the audacity to remain calm, his purple eyes were completely immobile with not a single feeling of fright or panic in them, calling him cold-blooded was a very big understatement.

A drop of sweat slid down his stern visage, not because of stress but rather because of the heat slowly burning his around his chest, after that, something was wriggling around his right fingers until it found its way between his index and middle finger, a small shining object.

Russel noticed the small object and before he could react, Yoshikage used his thumb to launch it like a marble toward the bully's left eye, only for him to quickly grab it mid-air and sneer menacingly at the blond's weak attempt.

"Ha! You thought you could distract me with-huh?" The mohawk shit-eating grin suddenly turned into a disbelieved mug at the sight of the object between his fingers, it was a golden coin, it cannot be a Lien since Remnant's currency only works with bills, and this one had an image of a **person with a shield emblazoned with a cross surrounded by two olive leaves** , could it be some kind of family crest or something like that?

"What the hell is that?!"

Yoshikage's expression didn't change at the boy's question, it stayed as it always was, **cold and menacing**.

" **That's my Semblance."**

At his words, his Stand triggered the bomb hidden in the coin and blew up the thug's face in an explosion proportionally of his size, the powerful blast shook the entire amphitheater with its audience completely baffled by what just happened.

The power of the shockwave made even the tall ceiling drop some bits of dust and the blonde teacher inadvertently let go of her Scroll tablet, even she completely underestimated the power of the boy's explosion.

The smoke finally discarded, showing Russel completely tainted in coal-black with his hair reduced to ash just before he dropped the coin in his hand and collapsed soon after, his health bar took some time to process the damages before it suddenly drained dry making all the students gasp in unison.

If he can pull blasts so powerful that it can drain a Huntsman's Aura in seconds, without mentioning how it can be devastating to any kind of Grimm, just with a single touch, why the hell he didn't do that in the first place?!

The three other members of team CRDL simply held their heads in shock at what just happened to their teammate while both team RWBY and team JNPR stood wide agape at the devastating strength of the boy's explosions, before finally starting to clap and cheer for their friend's victory.

Soon followed by the remaining audience, surprisingly enough, the only person not clapping was Ruby who just stayed on her seat silent and somewhat depressed despite her teammate's victory. Yoshikage, on the other hand, didn't react to all the praises and simply asked the teacher if he could leave so he can get changed and tend his bloody nose, she accepted with a nod before tapping on her Scroll to discard the health bars and end the fight.

In his way, his eyes merely caught with those of Weiss standing up and clapping with rest of the audience, her traits suddenly twitched as she realized that he was staring at her before she sat back on her seat looking a bit embarrassed by her unstylish enthusiasm, a brief moment passed before she looked back at him and gave him a congratulatory nod, Yoshikage simply smirked and nodded before he finally headed to the amphitheater exit.

The medical staff soon appeared to pick up Russel's unconscious body under the unconcerned look of Ms. Goodwitch who simply adjusted her glasses and officially announced the end of the fight. "I guess this combat is concluded with a definitive win towards Mr. Kira, even though I should note that his combat techniques are rather 'atypical', he has proven to be a very technical fighter with a seemingly unbreakable demeanor despite the odds being against him. I hope you children have taken what was learned in this fight under account as it could be useful in case you fell in such dire situations. However, I implore to not a powerful attack like his explosion, I do not think if the ceiling can sustain another magnitude six earthquake like that. Especially you Miss Valkyrie…"

Then after using her riding crop to clean the arena, the teacher proceeded to call the next fighters.

* * *

"Well, this shirt's gone…"

Yoshikage looked nauseatingly at the burn marks and holes covering his blue shirt and simply threw it away to the bin, the leather gloves are gone too.

" _That fucking prick and his Semblance, I should've had blown something more than that stupid haircut on his head…_ " He bitterly cursed, not realizing the door of his room slowly opening.

"Hey Yoshikage, do you mind a sec…"

The small little head of Ruby Rose slowly came out of the small opening of the door, just before staring at Yoshikage's naked back and jerking back in embarrassment. "Ow! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I should've knocked!"

"Yeah, you should have." Yoshikage dryly said while he was putting a white tank top. "You can come in now."

Ruby finally decided to enter the room, her blushing cheeks quite apparent on her pale visage, then closed the door behind her before looking around the blond's small bedroom and complimenting it. "Hey, quite a decent room you got there Yoshikage."

"Thanks." Dully replied Kira while sitting on his bed, before asking her with the most stoic frown ever. "But I don't think you came here to compliment my room, right?"

The silver-eyed girl startled a bit due to the boy's fierce accusations before finally looking down and admitting her true purpose. "Ye-Yeah, I just wanted to say that… I'm sorry for what happened this afternoon, I shouldn't have distracted you in mid-battle, y' know when there's a battle in front of me I can't help it but be all enthusiastic and…"

"That…" Yoshikage sighed through his nose while closing his eyes for a moment, trying to gather enough words to express his toughs but finally gave up. "It's… alright."

"Oh well, I never thought it would be that easy…" Ruby's cute face finally began radiating in relief before staring in confusion at the two purple irises severely goggling at her soul completely immobile.

" _ **What do you mean by that?"**_

"Well-huh… Y'know how sometimes you make people feel uncomfortable with that spooky glare…" The silver-eyed girl began sheepishly chuckling before realizing the threatening pair of hands approaching her pale visage with Yoshikage's sinister scowl hovering above them like a vindictive ghost. _"Yeah, that glare._ "

Ruby swallowed her saliva and just gawked terrifyingly at the long fingers nearly brushing her petrified cheeks, they were cold, thin, and meticulously immobile, like they were owned by a fresh corpse, or a murderous psycho killer, the kind of sick killer who takes his victims hands and turns them into **their girlfriend or something**.

The air felt heavy, unbreathable even, those vicious fingers simply prohibited the poor girl from even exhaling the air built in her lungs, and those freshly cut fingernails, this terrifying dark purple cloud radiation around these skeletal hands, those murderous eyes glowing in the shadow of an emotionless visage. She had to scream but couldn't, her mouth just stayed agape completely paralyzed, the horror freezing every nerve in her body from top to bottom.

 **Is he… going to kill her?**

…

…

…

" _Owowowow!_ "

"What did you say about me being frightening?" Sternly scolded the blond boy while pinching one of Ruby's cheeks and slowly stretching it, the pain intensely erupting urged the poor girl to wept out an apology with a few tears of pain rolling down her face. "Ouch _! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-_ " Yoshikage finally released the pressure on the young huntress' cheek and rested his hands on his waist.

" _Jeez!_ When did you turn into a male version of Yang?!" She cried out while rubbing her cheek with a bothered glare at him, still, despite how hard she frowned those eyebrows, that cute face will never be threatening not one bit.

"When you started annoying me in mid-battle!" Exclaimed the blond, he then pointed a sharp finger right at her nose and playfully threatened her. "And if you do that again, I'll pinch your other cheek! Maybe even both!"

"No please! This is starting to seriously become my weak points at this point!" Begged the silver-eyed girl while covering her face, her goofy nature took the blond by surprise as a slight chuckle accidentally burst out of his mouth.

Seeing the mild smile on Yoshikage's sharp face warmed the huntress' heart, with the proud conviction that she made even a stone wall like Yoshikage slightly laugh, she decided to leave the boy alone and opened the door of the room just before she stood there for a second and turned toward him.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

Ruby looked down for a moment with a thoughtful expression before raising her head and giving him a glowing smile. "No, it's nothing, see you tomorrow Yoshikage."

And the door closed, Yoshikage stood silent for a moment wondering what it was all about before brushing it off, he then closed the curtain as he saw that the sun had set during their discussion and crashed to his bed.

"Well, that was pretty strange…" He muttered while looking at the hand he pinched the girl's cheek with, he simply didn't know what made him do that, he knew far well than anybody that he never was the joking type and here he is playing with her like he was a long-time friend or something.

But then it felt nice, it felt good, it felt… **fun**. This sharp and sudden surge of happiness erupting from his chest was something he never felt, is this really how it feels to laugh and make jokes with… **friends?**

…

Ruby Rose, despite all the flaw this girl has, her childish demeanor, her unfounded enthusiasm, and excitement, Yoshikage genuinely felt it annoying and somewhat even irritating at first, despite all of that, he genuinely praised her for this kind of optimism and cheerfulness, her talent in making anybody around her feel happy felt supernatural, like a second Semblance or something like that, something he, unfortunately, lack.

However, while she was a quirky fifteen-year-old girl, the trial at Emerald Forest showed him that she can be very serious and eager in becoming a great Huntress and that was something he admired about her, he was definitely impressed by her ability to push her eagerness into serious labor when the situation needs it, maybe that's why Ozpin nominated her as a leader.

Only time will tell if he was right or not…

…

But she definitely should not give hand-to-hand combat advice to anyone, jeez…

* * *

The janitor started to pass the broom around the fighting stage of the amphitheater, a clear annoyed frown on his face due to the messed-up state the student left it. "Goddamn brats and their weapons, can't they study something else? Like law or something?"

His grumbling thoughts were soon interrupted by a slight shining object on the floor, he crouched down to it and saw with shining eyes at the small gold coin. "Holy shit! Looks like somebody dropped a nickel down here, looks pretty weird, must somebody's family precious trinket, too bad it's mine now! I wonder how much this gonna cash out in a pawnshop…"

His shit-eating grin suddenly faded away at the hearing of a sharp **'clank'** when his fingers made the slight contact with the coin, then nearly instantly, a bright explosion traveled from the tip of his fingers to the rest of his body in a matter of seconds, leaving behind him not even a pile of ash.

The explosion was eerily silent and the smoke immediately scattered away, the janitor's sole last token of existence was the broom simply falling to the ground.

* * *

 **Oof, this one took me more time than it should, like a loooooooooooot of time.**

 **I really apologize about that, but many things took me for the past year, moving out into a different city was one of them, I also was busy rewriting some small thingies, let's just hope this chapter would be worth the wait, next one will hopefully come much earlier.**

 **Anyway, so as you can see I've decided to give Cardin's team more screen time and much more character dept than in the series, I've also decided to give Russel the ability to generate Heat since I thought it would be fitting his desertic attire, hope you guys liked how it turned out!**

 **Don't forget to like, subscribe, leave a favorite, a follow, and why not even a review to know what didya liked/not liked!**

 **Oh, and one last thing, I have a threat in both SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity, you're welcome to join the discussion and I add some additional details over there, like a more in-depth analyse on Russel's Semblance.**

 **Cheers!**


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